The idle pleasures of these days

[selenak]

Now this sounds like a truly intriguing Shakespeare bio pic: Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh as Anne and Will Shakespeare, set after his return to Stratford, script by Ben Elton. There's just one bit in the article which made me go huh, and it's not that Kenneth Branagh is 26 years younger than Judi Dench; Peter O'Toole was 23 years younger than Katherine Hepburn when he played Henry to her Eleanor in The Lion in Winter (and in both cases, Shakespeares and Plantaganenets, the female half of the couple actually was older (though to a far lesser extent than the actors). Not to mention that it's still refreshing if instead of pairing up a famous male actor with an actress decades younger as his love interest, the reverse happens , for a qualified meaning of "love interest" since we're talking estranged husband and wife in this case. BTW, I'm thrilled that the article talks about "their grief at the death of their only son, Hamnet", their, because in most fictional takes on Shakespeare, minus Oxfordian heresies, this is treated as his grief only.

Anyway, Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh in what sounds like an Albee-esque take on the Shakespeares: yes, please.

...and of course I'm always delighted to see Ian McKellen, but here's where I went "huh?", because: Ian McKellen co-stars as the Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated his two narrative poems, and who has frequently been identified as the “Fair Youth” of his sonnets.


Okay. As opposed to the Anne-Will/Dench-Branagh age gap, this is actually a problem, because in 1613, when this story supposedly takes place, , Southhampton was 40 years old. Sexy Sir Ian undoubtedly still is, but 40 he's not, and Mr. W.H. being younger than Shakespeare is kind of an issue in the sonnets. Maybe the Guardian got the part Ian McKellen is playing wrong, thought I, searched for another source, but no, BBC America also names him as Southampton. Okay then, say I. Maybe all that high living plus the stint in the Tower due to the Essex Rebellion aged up Southhampton really fast.

(The other issue is a personal one, as in I never liked Henry Wriothesley all that much - like his chum Essex, he comes across as a none too bright entitled ass relying on his looks and charm to get away with stuff and always am glad if in Shakespeare bio pics one of the alternate candidates is picked for Mr. W.H. of sonnet fame, but that's neither here nor there.)

The BBC America artile also says Shakespeare needs to “mend the broken relationships with his wife and daughters,” while confronting “his own failings as husband and father" which means the movie won't go into the Anthony Burgess "Anne undoubtedly became a Puritan in her old age and never understood him anyway" direction. (Good.) "Daughters" hopefully means we'll get both Susanna and Judith; previous fictionalisations I'm familiar with picked one or the other to focus on, but not both.

Crazy conspiracy theory: maybe McKellen plays a Christopher Marlowe who faked his early death and is looking up Shakespeare in Stratford, and the Southhampton talk is just a cunning mislead on the part of Ben "Blackadder" Elton, the scriptwriter?

Comments

[lilysea]

Thank you for sharing! ^_^

This looks really interesting! ^_^

[selenak]

You're welcome, and doesn't it just...

[vaznetti]

While on the subject of Will & Anne & Christopher Marlowe faking his death for reasons too complicated to explain at this juncture, have you encountered Upstart Crow, the recent BBC sitcom about Shakespeare which includes all these things (as well as the rest of Shakespeare's family, Burgage & the other actors etc.) It is extremely funny and you'd probably enjoy it; I can't remember whether you've already seen it, though.

[selenak]

I've heard about it, but no, haven't watched it yet.

[andraste]

Another possibility: maybe for some reason Southampton only appears in some kind of flash-forward set forty years after the main action? Otherwise it is decidedly odd casting. (Much and all as I love Sir Ian forever.)

[selenak]

A flash forward I hadn't thought of, but that would also work! Though Southhampton would make an odd narrator for a story set in Stratford, but maybe Susanna or Judith finally meet him years later, which triggers the story, and they are the pov characters...

[kore]

Oh, this does look really neat.

[selenak]

Doesn't it just!

[dhampyresa]

maybe McKellen plays a Christopher Marlowe who faked his early death and is looking up Shakespeare in Stratford

That'd be hella cool!

[rheasilvia]

Hmmmm... I am of two minds about this.

On the one hand, Shakespeare! I love Shakespeare.

On the other hand, I love Shakespeare. I have never seen him portrayed in a way that did not make me want to scream in fiction...and my (unkind, but not unfounded) theory on why Ian McKellen is the Fair Youth is that OMG, we wouldn't want to risk our hero Shakespeare seeming anything other than perfectly (and possibly rampantly) heterosexual!

[selenak]

You know, I haven't seen a take on Shakespeare featuring whoever gets idenfitified as the Fair Youth (Southhampton, Pembroke, Less Well Known Candidate) which doesn't include homoerotic pining (see also here, and here), so that's not a concern of mine. Especially since within the chosen time frame of the film (1613), Southhampton doesn't need to be included at all - his association with Shakespeare (whether or not he was also Mr. W.H.) was well over by then. The only point of including him in a story focusing on Shakespeare near the end of his life returning to Stratford would be, in fact, to tell the audience Will didn't just pine/have sex with with other women while in London (and elsewhere) all those years.

[rheasilvia]

I hope you're right! I think that the more high-profile and mainstream a project is, the less likely it is to stick its neck out by doing "risky" things like implying non-straightness for heroes, but I do really hope you're right. I have not seen a lot of Branagh's work recently, but after the so-called "real" Frankenstein, I confess I don't trust him.

(I can't really take the Fair Youth's mere presence as a good sign, I'm afraid... Hollywood's unspeakable "Troy" had Patroclus in it, but Achilles was still a rampantly heterosexual hypermasculine bodybuilder-dudebro. They could have left Patroclus out and just invented a different plot point for his death, but they chose to just hammer home Achilles' straightness all the time instead. It does work, for a certain value of "work". And while there are legitimate quibbles regarding Homer's version of the story and the later tradition, I do not believe for a second that played into it at all. If that had been it Achilles would still not have been played by Brad Pitt.)

[selenak]

Well, considering Ben Elton, not Branagh, wrote the script, it might be better to check out his repertoire, not KBs. Who, btw, can be acccused of many things, but not of shying away from homoeroticism. (See also: including the conspirator scenes early in Henry V which Olivier chopped in his version since if you’re making a WWII propaganda movie, they’re pointless, while young Kenneth uses them to do some homoerotic wresting with Henry’s traitorous bff of yore before he sentences him.) (ETA: almost forgot, Peter’s Friends, which Branagh did not just direct but co-wrote, has of course a gay main character.) And again: a movie which is focused on older Shakespeare returning to his estranged family and having to patch up with them after so many years of absence does not need Southhampton. As in, at all. And considering Elton is concurrently writing and producing a young Shakespeare sitcom (Upstart Crow), it’ s not like this he’d feel the need to add him because he doesn’t have the chance to write him in other Shakespeare bio pics (or shows). So I really don’t see how including this unneeded character should be an indication of Shakespeare being presented as more het than het, as opposed to an indication that his bi-ness will at the very least be hinted at.

Incidentally, I do have a new theory about the McKellen casting, and it’s based on thinking a bit back on Kenneth Branagh’s oeuvre. It might be simply that he wants to work with Ian McKellen. No more complicated than that. Because he does adore the acting generation before him; see also: casting Derek Jacobi in every possible role through the decades, from chorus to mad Hitchockian villain to King Claudius to Mercutio, most recently), and for that matter casting Judi Dench again and again, and of course Richard Briers. (He’s very loyal to the younger than him ones, too; Tom Hiddlestone famously owes his getting cast as Loki to Branagh having worked with him in Wallander.) And McKellen is someone he hasn’t worked with before, either on stage or on tv or on film. Given Ian McKellen’s age, there might not be that many chances for Branagh to work with him in anything, so if I were him, I’d pounce at the chance, too.

Mind you, if that’s the case I do wonder about Elton not being able to write a more suitable part for Ian McKellen now, even if it’s just a crusty Stratford neighbour, but then again maybe McKellen only said yes if he gets to play Southhampton? Which brings me to: why on earth would Ian McKellen, famous gay activist and between Gandalf and Magneto definitely not in need of cash, want to play a part presenting Shakespeare as exclusively heterosexual?

In conclusion: I think in this particular case, you’re on the wrong scent.

[rheasilvia]

Those are all good points! I am more optimistic now, and await what is to come. Although I will let other people watch it first. ;-)

Who knows, perhaps Shakespeare will settle down with Southhampton in a flashforward, and they will then be closer to the same age thanks to make-up...?

[maidenjedi]

Hmm.

I would have gone with J.J. Feild over Sir Ian for Southampton, myself. (Or hey, Hiddleston, why not, since as you say Branagh likes working with the same actors on repeat)

But I'd be down for your conspiracy theory as well.

[selenak]

Could definitely see Hiddleston as Mr. W.H., but I’d love it if my crackpot conspiracy theory were true. (Not least because I’d want to know what Faked-his-death Marlowe had been up do in his other life. ;)

[lokifan]

maybe McKellen plays a Christopher Marlowe who faked his early death and is looking up Shakespeare in Stratford

zomg I YEARN

Honestly Sir Ian would be so up for a His Majesty's Will take on Shakespeare and Marlowe, right?

[selenak]

Absolutely! And if a time travel machine existed, I'd cast him as young Marlowe immediately. Young Patrick Stewart can play Will, of course. :)

(Seriously though, that novel needs to be filmed.)