The Life and Death of King John

TV Movie
1984
Not Rated
2h 35m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Leonard Rossiter in The Life and Death of King John (1984)

King John does whatever it takes to keep himself on the throne of England, making enemies of the pope, France, and his nephew along the way.King John does whatever it takes to keep himself on the throne of England, making enemies of the pope, France, and his nephew along the way.King John does whatever it takes to keep himself on the throne of England, making enemies of the pope, France, and his nephew along the way.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

150

YOUR RATING

11User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos

Storyline

Edit

Did you know

Edit

Trivia
For this production, director David Giles chose to go with a semi-stylised setting which he referred to as both "emblematic" and "heraldic."

Connections
Featured in Shakespeare's Women & Claire Bloom (1999)

User reviews11

Review

Featured review

8/10

A good TV drama

I'm glad I watched this. It is a good production of a neglected (and in my opinion unjustly so) play. Leonard Rossiter gives a magnificent performance in the title role. There are, as well as him, many other very good performances (notably Claire Bloom as Constance and John Thaw as Hubert). The film however was very obviously filmed entirely indoors and does not attempt to hide the fact. Due to this, the supposedly outdoor sets are very bad, some of it unnecessary. For some reason, when the scene is in France they painted Fleur-de-Lys in the sky and the town walls of Angiers look like what you'd expect from a children's playground. However in spite of this I enjoyed it very much. It has excellent acting, quite good costumes (though again, some of this looks a little stagy) some nice Medieval music and good directing.

Overall 8/10.