[Duncan]

I read in this page that Don McKellan of Stratford is coming quite soon my screen, ah!

The RSC's recent production of William Shakespeare's King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn and with Ian McKellen in the title role, is being filmed for HD TV. It will be broadcast on England's BBC Channel 4 in December, as well as being broadcast on PBS in the autumn and a number of other TV stations internationally, including NHK Japan. Plans are also in the works to make the tape available on worldwide DVD.

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/12573

[Lynette]

Let's hope they do it nicely then. It's very hard to bring off a stage show on the telly or film. It usually goes all bleak and flat. That's why I like Kenneth Branagh's films which are proper films.

[armadillo]

I read in this page that Don McKellan of Stratford is coming quite soon my screen, ah!
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/12573

The RSC's recent production of William Shakespeare's King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn and with Ian McKellen in the title role, is being filmed for HD TV. It will be broadcast on England's BBC Channel 4 in December, as well as being broadcast on PBS in the autumn and a number of other TV stations internationally, including NHK Japan. Plans are also in the works to make the tape available on worldwide DVD.

Shame people in Scotland and Wales won't get a chance to see it...

[Lynette]

Scots ok with Shakespeare are they? Good. I thought they were trying to break loose.

[Duncan]

Channel 4 not BBC4 according to the horse's mouth!

Royal Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear to be recorded at Pinewood Studios
22 January 2008

The RSC's recent production of King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn and with Ian McKellen in the title role, is to be captured on HD TV at Pinewood Studios after its West End run at the New London Theatre finished on 12 January.

The sell-out show, which originated at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 2007 before embarking on an international tour and West End run, started shooting on 17th January for two weeks, retaining nearly all members of the original cast (see below).

The project is led by Richard Price and Chris Hunt of The Performance Company, an associate of Richard Price Television Associates, who have both worked with Trevor Nunn on previous projects. Price and Nunn's relationship goes back 25 years, to the award-winning RSC production of Nicholas Nickleby in 1981 which won the top US Emmy award and was recently re-run on BBC 4 over the Christmas season.

This will be the second project on which Price has worked with Nunn and McKellen - McKellen played Iago in Nunn's RSC production of Othello which was recorded in 1991. Price has also taped Nunn's productions of Porgy and Bess in 1992, and recorded his National Theatre productions of Oklahoma! in 1999 (which won an international Emmy in 2000) and The Merchant of Venice (2000). Chris Hunt was joint producer on both.

King Lear is due to be transmitted on Channel 4 in December 2008 (date to be confirmed) as well as being broadcast on PBS in the autumn. It will also be broadcast by a number of other TV stations internationally, including NHK Japan as well as being available on worldwide DVD (details to be confirmed).

The joint producer and associate director is Chris Hunt (who is also a Director of The Performance Company) and the line producer is Andy Picheta.

http://www.rsc.org.uk/press/420_6333.aspx

[keysersoze]

Let's hope they do it nicely then. It's very hard to bring off a stage show on the telly or film. It usually goes all bleak and flat. That's why I like Kenneth Branagh's films which are proper films.

Nunn's Merchant translated well to film. It was filmed like a TV drama, not as a recording of a stage performance, although it was.

[Backdrifter]

I hate Shakespeare on screen, whether it's one of these stage-productions-on-film jobs or a feature film. For me, it simply never works. I have a similar problem with musicals - both things are, for me, solely stage creations.

I know Peter Hall has the same problem with Shakespeare on film (he said so in a talk he gave at the NT about 3 years ago) but I wonder if anyone else here does.

[Somewhere]

I hate Shakespeare on screen, whether it's one of these stage-productions-on-film jobs or a feature film. For me, it simply never works. I have a similar problem with musicals - both things are, for me, solely stage creations.

I know Peter Hall has the same problem with Shakespeare on film (he said so in a talk he gave at the NT about 3 years ago) but I wonder if anyone else here does.

Have you ever seen Ian McKellen on stage or on film?
He is absolutely superb.

I am convinced he is going to make it work. Brilliantly.

He's just had a short stint with KL at Stratford:
KING LEAR Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Trevor Nunn Ian McKellen in the role of King Lear Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, followed by World Tour 24 March 2007 - 12 January 2008

The reviews were , really, outstanding.
"This is a superlative performance from McKellen" — Benedict NIghtingale, The Times

"Having spent his youth scaling the peaks of Shakespeare with spectacular bravado in his native England, Mr. McKellen has recently acquired international stardom in not one but two cult series of movies, 'X-Men' and 'The Lord of the Rings.' In those fantasy films Mr. McKellen portrays commanding creatures of metamorphic gifts unknown to ordinary humans. But such powers are slight compared with what he achieves as Lear: a series of metamorphoses that, while drawn in the supernal element of theatrical flame, nonetheless hold up an uncompromising mirror to the future for any ordinary human who has the good (or bad) fortune to live past his prime. Mr. McKellen embodies onstage what the critic Harold Bloom has called 'the terrible intimacy' that 'Lear' inspires in the reading. " -- Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"The boldness of Nunn's approach both protects and enhances the production's crown jewel performance by Ian McKellen, whose generous and profoundly human interpretation of Shakespeare's tragic king ranks right up there with those of the gods of theater, living and dead." -- Marilyn Stasio, Variety

"Sunday newspaper drama critics duly added their approving voices yesterday to the daily paper critics' enthusiastic verdicts last week. Most of them agree that Sir Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company productions at Stratford of Shakespeare's King Lear and Chekhov's The Seagull - the former with Sir Ian McKellen in the title role, the latter with him in a brilliant secondary part, are very notable theatrical milestones." — The Guardian

"One of the most lucid, powerful and moving productions of this great tragedy I have ever seen" — Charles Spencer, The Telegraph

"McKellen, intoning 'never' over Cordelia’s corpse like an old, muffled church bell: a hauntingly painful ending to one of his finest performances." — Benedict Nightingale, The Times

"It is for McKellen, and his triumphant progress towards a kind of enlightenment, that I shall really remember the occasion." — Michael Billington, The Guardian

"This is a fine production, beautifully designed and lit, with a commanding central performance by McKellen." — Peter Wood, What's on Stage

[josh]

Whyyyyy are they waiting until December to broadcast this?