The Guardian, May 4th
1989, Jay Rayner
The filming for TV
of Michael Bogdanov’s ‘Wars of the Roses’ cycle called for a military style
campaign.
Two years ago, when the English Shakespeare Company’s gargantuan 23-hour ‘Wars of the Roses’ cycle emerged from rehearsal for its world tour, director Michael Bogdanov said very firmly that he would never again attempt anything like it.
He and the company had restaged ‘Henry IV parts I
and II’ and ‘Henry V’, which they had already been touring for a year, and
then, without a pause for breath, had added ‘Richard II’, their own version of
the three parts of ‘Henry VI’ in two sections, and ‘Richard III’ – and it had
taken only 13 weeks, less than two weeks a play.
But in the first week of April, Bogdanov and the
ESC journeyed to Swansea with their four massive trucks of set, costumes and
props in tow to restage the whole cycle once again, this time in a week.
It was television that made him do it. After a
celebrated two years and having visited Japan, Australia, America and Hong Kong
along the way, the tour was heading towards a rather anti-climatic end on a wet
Saturday afternoon at Swansea Grand Theatre. Then a gaggle of TV producers
stepped in and suggested they film the whole cycle.
Swansea was the perfect location for the project.
Away from the noise and passing fire engines of London it utilised a theatre
which has only recently undergone a multi-million pound renovation and is now
wired to cope with television like HTV who regularly use it.
Appropriately, like the plays, it was a massive and
hair-raising operation. The full £1.1 million backing only became available at
the last minute and, with the 28-strong company now committed to other
projects, the tour could not continue beyond Swansea. Twenty-three hours of TV
would have to be shot in only a week.
In short it meant taping each play live as it
appeared on the stage with an audience, but with Bogdanov toning down the
productions for TV cameras. There would be time to shoot only 10-15 minutes of
close-ups each afternoon, mostly of fight and battle sequences, which would
then be edited in to the live recording. Only Bogdanov could direct it for the
small screen.
On the Friday afternoon, Bogdanov is standing on
stage facing out into the darkness of the empty auditorium with his back to the
action and leering at a TV monitor like a boxer sizing up his opponent. They
are shooting close-ups of ‘Henry IV: House of Lancaster’ and the grisly scene
in which Suffolk, played by ESC co-director Michael Pennington, has his head
unceremoniously removed.
“Great. That was lovely,” Bogdanov says ironically.
“Let’s tape it.” There is an air of controlled mania around the theatre with
the firm knowledge that there is little or no time to go back and correct
mistakes. What they see is what the TV audience will get, and there’s a lot of
money resting on it.
To ease the operation the producers approached some
of the country’s top technicians and got the services of most of them. BAFTA
award-winning lighting director John Treays cancelled his holiday for it, and
newly wed sound designer Bob Doyle opted to have his honeymoon in Swansea.
The senior technicians all saw the plays over a
week in Southampton where they took notes and discussed the TV production with
Bogdanov. It meant, however, that they had only seen each play once when they
come to shoot it – and that the rest of the crew hadn’t seen them at all.
Instead, to catch every shot, seven cameras were
put into the theatre including two hand held on the stage. Each morning
Bogdanov showed the crew a simple video of that night’s performance made on one
camera at Southampton, pointing out which actor was playing what. The 28 people
in the company played more than 500 parts.
The sound came from loose gun mikes rather than
radio mikes that proved impractical for this sort of production, and the whole
operation was controlled from a mobile TV gallery truck out in the car park.
Here Bogdanov sat during each performance making a frantic master edit.
There was a second gallery built on stage flats in
the scenery dock where the producers hid chewing their hands through each
performance, watching it on a dozen screens. “It was always a bit of a gamble,”
says producer Andy Ward over lunch. “But it’s a revelation how this Shakespeare
makes such good TV.” He, along with Jean-Paul Chapple, represented Portman Classics
on location, the company created by Portman Productions just for ‘The Wars of
the Roses’.
“Backing was only discussed in mid-January,” Ward
continued, “and I got involved just before Easter. We’ve had about two weeks to
put the whole package together.” Not only was it shot using state-of-the-art
technology. It was made possible by state-of-the-industry collaboration. There
are no fewer than five independent TV companies involved, from backers to
distributors and post-production companies – and they haven’t even sold it to
anybody yet.
“But mention to any broadcaster that we’re shooting
Shakespeare and their eyes light up,” says production executive Angus Fletcher
of distributors ITEL. “They know we’re making quality television.”
All the producers, and there seemed to be at least
six people claiming the title, are aware of the problems created by trying to
make quality television from quality theatre.
“The plays are obviously directed for theatre,”
said Ward. “What we’re doing is trying to make it more three dimensional for
television. We’ve relit it for the small screen and we’re using very low camera
angles. You will be able to see into the wings because we are making no
pretence that this isn’t on stage. It was a conscious effort to get the live
element of the work on tape. The nearest comparison is to the filming of a rock
gig.”
And, said Jean-Paul Chapple, the viewers will share
the experience of the theatre audience rather than get involved in a
voyeuristic exercise when it reaches television.
Another problem was the state of the ESC’s props
and set. After touring for two years on limited funds, much of it was on its
last legs by the time it reached Swansea. John Halle was brought in as TV
Production Design Coordinator, with the mammoth brief of returning it all to
first-night standard. As Angus Fletcher said, “Working on this ridiculous
time-scale there’s only one thing to say in the face of calamity: It’s not a
problem because there’s nothing we can do about it.”
But it was out in the cramped mobile TV gallery,
during the filming of the second half of ‘Henry VI: House of Lancaster’, that
the contradictions of such an exercise became most apparent.
Bogdanov sits faced by a bank of screens displaying
the picture from each of the seven cameras. Every few seconds he flicks his
fingers at each image as he wants it, shouting at the same time, a veritable
whirlwind of energy.
On his left sits the vision mixer who will cut from
camera to camera on his fraught command. On his right sits Anthea, the production
assistant who gives a constant running commentary on the play from her prompt
script for the crew.
As the lights come up on the last scene of the play
Bogdanov looks distraught. “It’s too bright, it looks terrible,” he shouts.
“We’ll have to shoot it again.”
“I’m sorry Michael,” comes the lighting designer’s
voice on the radio. “It’s the first time we’ve seen this. It’s the best we can
do.” Bogdanov settles down in his chair none too happy. But as June Watson,
playing the bereft Margaret Queen of France, starts to walk across the stage,
the severed head of her beloved Suffolk in her arms, the cameras reveal what
the audience may not be able to see so acutely.
Tears are streaming down her face. It is a performance
of huge emotional intensity and it is coming at him from so many angles on so
many screens that Bogdanov is left in do doubt. “There’s absolutely no way I
can ask her to try and do that again. Christ, I could never ask her to do that
again.” A compromise has been reached. In a play-off between production values
and performance it was the latter that got all the bouquets.
And that should be a relief for all those who have
so adored this monumental ‘Wars of the Roses’ cycle. Agreed by many to be at
its best when viewed in its entirety, it would be a tragedy if, in trying to
bring in a larger audience, it lost the fire and nerve that has made so many
people love it.
“You can’t apologise for it being a stage
performance,” explains Bogdanov in a quiet moment.” But you can hope to capture
some of the freshness and energy of them. These productions have a contemporary
feel about them and they are for an audience brought up on soap operas. This is
a story over seven plays of feuding families and people carving each other up.”
And Bogdanov goes as far as to say that the camera
has enhances his productions. Originally staged, as most theatre is, for the
person viewing from just one position, TV allows the viewer to move around the
stage and capture more than was originally envisaged. “I’m very excited at what
I’m looking at on the TV screens. When you look at the stage you see the whole
thing, but now I’m seeing the details as well.
“Maybe we’ve actually focused and concentrated this
production. The problem with televised Shakespeare now, however, is that the
BBC series completely flooded the market and they were dull productions. Now
we’re seeing a much punchier approach to Shakespeare, which is great.”
‘The Wars of the Roses’ now goes into post-production
until October when it will be released to TV audiences. Meanwhile the ESC is
taking a rest. Michael Bogdanov goes to Hamburg’s Deutsches Schauspielhaus in
August and Michael Pennington will be filming a TV adaptation of John
Mortimer’s ‘Summer Lease’
with new ESC productions planned for the spring of 1990.
But those in Swansea in the first week of April
still had their minds full of the project in hand. Out in the bar sat an
English Shakespeare Company groupie, a Bardophile who had followed the tour
from one end of the country to the other and now wore an ‘I Survived the War of
the Roses’ T-shirt.
Backstage in the dressing rooms and scenery docks,
behind cameras and in control rooms were more than a hundred cast and crew who
now understood what that T-shirt meant.