Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Julius Caesar, has always been one of his lesser liked plays. It's predominantly an all male drama with only two supporting female characters like Calpurnia and Portia. It was still a male dominated world in Caesar's time where women are wives, nurses, maids, and mistresses. The BBC did a service in producing Shakespeare's plays faithfully to the word. I watch the English subtitles to get a better account of the story. The BBC has faithfully recreated the background scenes without much cost. There is no audience for a reaction or applause. The cast includes Charles in the title role. He is a fine Caesar. Richard Pasco and Keith Michell are also fine too. Unlike Shakespeare's other tragedies, this story is about politics, power, corruption, and greed.

When it comes to compiling a list of Shakespeare's best plays, from personal opinion, 'Julius Caesar' would not make the list, though it would certainly not be on the lesser play list. That is not saying that it's a bad play, quite the contrary. It is compelling with fully rounded characters, interesting themes and some of Shakespeare's most famous lines and speeches, Shakespeare once again showing how unrivalled he is in mastery of language, text and poetry whether in a few lines or big monologues. It does though run out of steam dramatically towards the end and in performance very rarely is the final scene nailed.

The late 70s-early 80s BBC Shakespeare adaptations are very interesting. Quality-wise they are variable with not all of them being great, but it is great to see productions that are generally faithful and respectful and have distinguished casts (most with performances that are good or more, not all mind). Even if some have problems with over-faithfulness, lack of imagination and under-budget. Their 'Julius Caesar' from 1979 is towards the better end on the whole and the second best of the four productions transmitted at this point of the series, King Richard II' being the best and the others being 'Romeo and Juliet' (left me mixed) and 'As You Like It' (uneven but decent). Though there is better in the series definitely.

'Julius Caesar' is not completely perfect, a couple of aspects being hindered by budget. Although there are worse in the series, the costumes are unimaginative and somewhat drab (though the attempt at authenticity is admirable), those togas do look quite cheap.

As expected, but hoping the production would do it well, the final scene is once again not nailed and actually underwhelms. The momentum had gone and the staging felt static.

However, this production is interesting in quite a few respects. The camera work is more expansive than that for most productions in the series and doing the solliloquies in voice overs had a very effective psychological qualities. The characters are already fully rounded and flesh blooded, but are given more complexity and detail in the interpretations here (especially Brutus and Cassius). The stage direction is on the most part involving on a dramatic level, everything makes sense and nothing distracts or comes over as tasteless, credit is also due in having more detail and precision in the interactions and emotions than most in the series, complex in some places and subtle in others.

Costumes aside, 'Julius Caesar' doesn't look too bad with the sets being more authentic than those for the productions of the other Roman-set Shakespeare dramas/plays. Shakespeare's text shines brilliantly, all the major lines having their impact and the speeches/solliloquies having the right amount of nuance and intensity. There are great performances all round, a more subtle than usual Charles Gray portraying the title role with dignity and authority, nothing weak about him. Keith Michell is a virile Marc Antony and Richard Pasco brings a conflicted edge to Brutus. Same with David Collings as Cassius. In the female roles, Virginia McKenna and Elizabeth Spriggs more than hold their own, the former very touching and the latter a warm and interesting departure from the roles she tended to usually play (very well just to say and more).

On the whole, a 'Julius Caesar' worth praising and not one to bury. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The sets and the crowd scenes are generally well handled, but they are not what elicit a rating of 9 stars from me. Rather, the quality of the acting is what makes this production of "Julius Caesar" so commendable.

Richard Pasco is especially powerful as Brutus, with a performance that goes astray in only a couple of small respects. Near the end of Act IV, Pasco as Brutus is too rough and imperious in his interaction with Claudius and Varro; the text of the play suggests to me that Brutus was being solicitous rather than overbearing in his instructions to those subordinates. In addition, the death of Brutus was not quite as persuasively staged as the death of Cassius. Still, those two minor blemishes do not detract from a performance that splendidly captures the depths of one of Shakespeare's most complicated characters.

Having mentioned Cassius, I should straightaway commend David Collings for an excellent performance that captures the nuances of the character. Collings is certainly high-strung at times, but he is thereby conveying accurately the personality of Cassius as Shakespeare depicts it. From beginning to end, Collings combines subtlety and energy in a memorable display of fine acting.

Sam Dastor is engagingly witty in his portrayal of Casca (a character who disappears from the play after the assassination of Caesar), and Alexander Davion is adept as Decius Brutus whose expostulations with Caesar play a small but pivotal part in the unfolding of the play's events.

Keith Michell is generally impressive as Marc Antony. He begins in the mode of an Australian playboy who then rapidly matures into the desolate follower of a murdered master. His delivery of the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" oration is deft, and his performance in the second half of the play captures well both the valor and the arrogance of Antony. My one criticism is that the voice-over of the "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth" soliloquy does not work well. Though voice-overs are elsewhere used to good effect in this production, the soliloquy just mentioned should have been spoken throughout. During the voice-over, Michell looks as though he is bursting to speak (indeed, to yell), and he should have been given free rein to do so.

Virginia McKenna is excellent as Portia, whose voice-overs are especially effective. Elizabeth Spriggs is a fine Calpurnia, whose glowering at Decius Brutus is both funny and poignant.

The only lackluster performance is that of Leonard Preston in the minor role of Titinius. An actor playing that role should appear distraught in the aftermath of the death of Cassius, but instead Preston seems largely unmoved and even slightly jocund. Titinius is the only character who commits suicide unassistedly. Preston does not convey the frame of mind that would lead someone to such a desperate tack.

Despite some minor flaws, this production is admirable in multiple respects -- not least in its retention of nearly the full text. I heartily recommend it.

This is a very slow but enjoyable and faithful version of Julius Caesar. It feels a bit 'sword and sandals' thanks to the now old and low budget TV production. But its focus is on faithfulness to the text and that it is. Richard Pasco is a brilliant Brutus, you totally feel along with him the battle in his conscience and what is right and wrong in the brutal world that he lives in. For a more modern and engaging version watch the National Theatre's 2018 version if you can get hold of it.

The strengths of this otherwise ploddingly straightforward production are that it gives us the whole play, which is for two-thirds of its length quite absorbing, and that it is so well spoken - from the principals to John Elliott as Octavius' messenger. I wish it had been clearer that we'd moved from one scene to the next, and the unmouthed soliloquies work less well than in, say, Olivier's 'Hamlet'. But Richard Pasco is a throughly decent Brutus (noble and nearly always wrong!), at his very best in the 'quarrel scene', David Collings (though overshadowed, as are all others I've seen since 1953, by Gielgud in the Mankiewicz film) a fine, mercurial Cassius (alas he played only a tiny part in the recent revival of the play at London's Barbican), Keith Michell is a thrilling, crafty Marc Antony and Charles Gray is splendidly self-important as 'JC' himself. Sam Dastor's laconic account of Caesar's refusal of the crown is masterly, though thereafter he fades. As for the women, a gaunt Virginia McKenna is a poignantly vulnerable Portia and Elizabeth Spriggs a warm Calpurnia. The final battle is, as usual, distinctly underwhelming!