Sunday, August 10, 2003
Eventually got to sleep last night around midnight so thankfully don't feel quite so monged out today. I've been watching and enjoying I, Claudius, from the BBC. As an old man and emperor, Claudius (Derek Jacobi) writes the story of his family, from his grandfather Augustus (Brian Blessed) to insane Caligula (John Hurt). Mocked and spurned as a cripple and a half-wit Claudius outlives them all to become Emperor. So far I've watched three episodes, which mainly involve Augustus's wife, Livia (Sian Phillips in cracking form), finding ways to dispose of most of the rest of the cast, anyone in any danger of stopping her son Tiberius (George Baker) from succeeding Augustus as emperor. Most of the rest of the family have been poisoned, executed or banished so far and Claudius knows that the only chance he has for survival is for every one to believe he's an idiot.
Time has not been as kind to this production as other shows. But this is both a weakness and a strength. It's all done in a studio, even the garden scenes, so there's none of that 'interior-video, exterior-film' nonsense that you get with so much BBC stuff. But, as things are done on a set of stages, so you have theatrical actors like Phillips, Hurt and Jacobi to play on them, who mesmerise so that you tend not to notice that the prosthetics used to age them are awful. But the drama relies on dialogue, excellent though it is, at times of passion, such as a bedroom scene in episode three which Livia has engineered to bring down yet another rival to Tiberius for eventual Emperorship, lacking coherent dialogue it flags, only to be made up for almost immediately by the subsequent scene where the unlucky 'rapist' tries to convince Augustus of his wife's hand in all the mishaps of the last twenty years. It moves on at such a speed that I find it difficult to keep all the names and faces in my head, so at times am looking out for young versions of actors I've seen in later things. As well as Brian 'Flash Gordon/numerous other things' Blessed and George 'Inspector Wexford' Baker, in upcoming episodes there's going to be a young Patrick 'Captain Picard' Stewart and, Play insists, Christopher Biggins will be making an appearence. Definitely something to get me through the hot summer evenings!
Time has not been as kind to this production as other shows. But this is both a weakness and a strength. It's all done in a studio, even the garden scenes, so there's none of that 'interior-video, exterior-film' nonsense that you get with so much BBC stuff. But, as things are done on a set of stages, so you have theatrical actors like Phillips, Hurt and Jacobi to play on them, who mesmerise so that you tend not to notice that the prosthetics used to age them are awful. But the drama relies on dialogue, excellent though it is, at times of passion, such as a bedroom scene in episode three which Livia has engineered to bring down yet another rival to Tiberius for eventual Emperorship, lacking coherent dialogue it flags, only to be made up for almost immediately by the subsequent scene where the unlucky 'rapist' tries to convince Augustus of his wife's hand in all the mishaps of the last twenty years. It moves on at such a speed that I find it difficult to keep all the names and faces in my head, so at times am looking out for young versions of actors I've seen in later things. As well as Brian 'Flash Gordon/numerous other things' Blessed and George 'Inspector Wexford' Baker, in upcoming episodes there's going to be a young Patrick 'Captain Picard' Stewart and, Play insists, Christopher Biggins will be making an appearence. Definitely something to get me through the hot summer evenings!
