National Theatre Live: Twelfth Night

I was completely stundered by this production. Considering that it was a live performance (with audience) on a revolving stage in London's National Theatre, I found it miraculous. To achieve so much with so little *cinema* was utterly amazing. For éclat it beats any multi-million Hollywood production I have seen, while actually borrowing from the tired and tiring old tradition of The Musical.

I have a problem with Shakespeare. He's terrific on the page, but on the stage, there is usual far too much 'business', far too much speechifying. Give me Ibsen any day (especially the NT's production of A Doll's House). But I had no problem with this, even though (not having read it at school) most of the time I couldn't work out what was going on. That didn't matter, however, the fun and games, the capers, quips and jokes, the mind-boggling gender-swaps carried me along upon a sparkling tide of sheer enjoyment. Definitely a production fo happy queers of all genders. Surely the mis-called Bard of Avon would have loved it - and would have applauded when suddenly erupted The Speech from Hamlet to annoy the groundlings and the purist critics.

Because I'm hard of hearing (and the sounds of the production came from the stage, with slight echo) I needed subtitles, and, though they were better than most, there were some lapses and anomalies and peculiarities. Why was 'prithee' written 'primes' ?

This film goes at the top of my very select fave-list, along with Tarkovsky's Stalker, Svankmajer's Faust, Fassbinder's Angst essen Seele auf, The Iranian Makhmalbaf's Two-legged Horse, and the National Theatre's production of A Doll's House.