S J Birkill
MV Administrator
just a sensible reserve
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Shakespeare in Perspective
« : 02.11.25 at 18:45 » |
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Yes, it has been a while since I added anything to my Clive James Website Archive. Lots to be done, but here's something I couldn't keep back.
In 1980 Clive contributed to the BBC TV series Shakespeare in Perspective, an adjunct to the epic "BBC Television Shakespeare" series produced by Cedric Messina. Each 25-minute episode featured a writer or television personality airing his or her personal view of the play to be broadcast the following night. Clive's play was Hamlet, and he delivered what must be one of the finest ever essays on the great bard's genius. The film, directed by David Wilson, features some atmospheric location shooting, at Pembroke College (Cambridge), Berkeley Castle (Gloucestershire), the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and at Clive's then London home in the Barbican.
The film survives, but unfortunately for us and indeed for all of Clive's admirers, it is heavily copyright-protected and blocked by YouTube. I can't imagine who might benefit from this. The best I could do right now was to make the soundtrack available on our site.
In 1982, transcriptions of the texts of the Shakespeare in Perspective series were published by Ariel Books, an imprint of BBC Publications, and Clive's text from that source is reproduced here in our Essays section, at:
archive.clivejames.com/essays/hamlet.htm
This is a direct link, as I haven't yet integrated the page into our fast track/menu system -- this will await completion of a bunch of other essays I still have in my mountainous to-do stack, including columns Clive wrote for The Listener.
Steve
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