That was an excellent one.

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Another good adaptation of a Shakespeare play, Cymbeline sees the title character, the King of Britain,cast his daughter Imogen into exile for choosing the wrong husband, lowly Posthumous thus setting off a chain of events that nearly sees him lose his crown. Machinations abound with the King's scheming wife,his fey and pompous stepson, as well as a group of hunters lurking in the nearby forest who have deep and ultimately redeeming connections with the King.Richard Johnson is likable enough as the beleaguered King, and Claire Bloom and Micheal Gough are good enough in their roles. Robert Lindsay could be more menacing in the part of the scheming Iachimo, despite a racy mock-seduction scene with Helen Mirren's Imogen. Mirren is good to watch as the virtuous but naive princess, despite a scene in the end where she's lamely disguised as a boy but no-one recognises her. Paul Jesson, usually cast as rough working class characters, bravely takes the other route as Clothen and comes off well. Micheal Pennington, however, is the biggest loss as Posthumous. He's gamely acting his socks off but he just isn't moving enough to really convince us of his character's plight.The story at least is seen to make sense and that is reason enough to give this one a go. Not the best of the BBC Shakespeare adaptations but not the worst either.

Though orthodox theory deems William Shakespeare's Cymbeline as one of his latest works, the play is so cumbersome in its plotting that, as suggested by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it is more likely to have been a redraft of an earlier anonymous work, An history of the cruelties of a Stepmother shown at the palace at Richmond in 1578. In Cymbeline, first printed in the First Folio of 1623, King Cymbeline's Queen (who is the prototype of the wicked stepmother) wishes to marry her uncouth son Cloten to Cymbeline's daughter Imogen, performed in the BBC's 1982 production by the great Helen Mirren. Imogen, however, has chosen the worthy Posthumus (Michael Pennington) who has been rejected by King Cymbeline (Richard Johnson) and the Queen (Claire Bloom) because of his status as a commoner.The main thrust of the story, however, has its sources in Boccaccio's Decameron, a 14th century tale that was also used as a source for All's Well That Ends Well. The story tells of a jealous husband who makes a bet on his wife's fidelity and is tricked into believing that she was unfaithful. Shakespeare takes this story set in Italy and transports it to Roman Great Britain at the beginning of the Christian era. Cymbeline is modeled after the real King Cunobelin but the Queen, her son Cloten, and Imogen are all inventions of the playwright. The real King, however, did have two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, who play a prominent role in the play but again Shakespeare takes extravagant liberties with history. The dramatist has the King's sons abducted from the Court in early childhood and have been brought up ignorant of their ancestry for twenty years by Belarius, whom the King had banished from Court.The play has many parallels with the life of Edward de Vere, too numerous to mention, and can be used as a case study for those favoring the Oxfordian point of view but is beyond the scope of this review. The play contains one of the most beautiful of all of Shakespearean songs, "Fear no more the heat of the sun" sung in a duet by Guiderius and Arviragus.Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.Cymbeline, like many other of this author's works, uses the device of a woman, Imogen, posing as a page boy, in order to pretend that she is dead. This would have been very tricky in the Elizabethan days since only boys were used to play girls. So we have the case of a boy pretending to be a girl who, in the play, pretends to be a boy which he in fact was in the first place.Another theme that is consistent with the dramatist is the overweening jealousy of a judgmental husband who wrongfully accuses a pure and innocent girl of infidelity, a jealousy encouraged by Iachimo (Robert Lindsay) who is reminiscent of Iago in Othello. This will make for interesting biographical material if the authorship question is ever sorted out. While Cymbeline receives a good performance by the BBC ensemble cast, Helen Mirren is unbelievable in the role of a page boy, the BBC making no effort whatsoever to disguise her. To have us believe that the King would not recognize his own daughter can only be described as ludicrous.

It would be much easier to make a laundry list of complaints about how "Shakespeare didn't know what he was doing," or "everyone and everything bores me," but let's do it the hard way and see what's here.This is one of those late plays that academics can't classify as a tragedy, comedy or history. This is not a mistake of Shakespeare's, but a deliberate choice. "Cymbeline" is crammed full of incident, sprouts multiple strands running off in all directions, and miraculously pulls itself together at the end. In fact, some critics refer to "Cymbeline," "Pericles" and "The Winter's Tale" as the Miracle Plays.So, assuming just for the moment that Shakespeare did know what he was doing, how well has he been served here? Helen Mirren as Imogen is herself a miracle, "in the moment" at every moment, totally committed to her character. John Kane and the ubiquitous Paul Jesson bring similar conviction to Pisanio and Clothen, respectively.Michael Gough surprises with his model delivery of Shakespeare's language - clear and natural. More likely to be remembered for some spectacularly grungy horror movies, Gough has done his own reputation a disservice with his enthusiasm for constant work no matter how scuzzy the script. This is his only appearance in the Shakespeare series, and that's a real pity.Richard Johnson rasps and scowls well as the King (check out his IMDb.com bio for a few surprises). Claire Bloom flirts with a Disney concept of an evil stepmother without quite going over the line. Michael Pennington acts everything that can be acted about Posthumus without the gift of making you care.Robert Lindsay, so grand in comic roles in "Much Ado" and "Twelfth Night," here is the inverse of Helen Mirren, without a single moment of truth as Iachimo - a fumbling, external attempt at a villain by an actor outside his natural range.Elijah Moshinsky's direction is of a piece with others of his in this series. Ignoring all Iron-Age references in the script (Julius Caesar is not long dead), Moshinsky's fascination with Old Masters' paintings gives us a coherent through line to the production, with a particularly wonderful mountain snow set designed by Barbara Gosnold. Occasionally the director provides a striking image, as when one character converses with the mirror reflection of another.However, Moshinsky's editing is occasionally clumsy. When Iachimo presents his false proofs to Posthumus, the camera stays on one character or the other for far too long, and often the wrong one. We strain to see the other character, and aren't allowed to. This is distracting, maladroit, and just not good enough.However "Cymbeline" has much to recommend it, and Helen Mirren's performance alone is worth the price of admission.

I really was far from gripped by this; I must admit that I was watching it in my faculty library, for study purposes - but that does not rule me out of having a fair opinion on this production's merits.This is one of the BBC Shakespeare Series, made in the late 1970s and early 1980s largely; 'twas a series that often lacked the necessary budgets to create any visual impact whatsoever. For instance, compare Orson Welles' filming of the Shrewsbury Battle to the pathetic, barely conveyed at all BBC sequence at the end of "Henry IV, Part I"... Really, these adaptations do not measure up (I admit I have not seen all of them, so I am not necessarily speaking about every one) to the many intriguing cinematic envisionings of Shakespeare, and indeed this "Cymbeline" simply does not make use of its television medium.The cast is solid, but uninspired; Helen Mirren, for example, very forgettable in the crucial lead female role. Many barely try to rise above the bare-minimum mediocrity of the production. Some of the costumes are 'nice' I guess - a conscious attempt to place the action in the early C17 - but Moshinsky's direction is pretty non-existent. The action is, however, presented without any zest, slant or variation; this basically seems far too much of a filmed stage-play, although it is of course supposed to be a 'television adaptation'. Some actors acquit themselves adroitly - the irreproachable Robert Lindsay perfect as the silvery jackanapes Iachimo - and most of an experienced, familiar cast are tidy, but fail to add much to their roles: Michael Gough ('Horror Hospital', 'Satan's Slave'), Marius Goring ('A Matter of Life and Death' indeed!), Graham Crowden ('The Company of Wolves', Old Jock in 'A Very Peculiar Practice' and a thumping hiss-the-melodrama-villain turn as Soldeed in "Dr Who"'s 'The Horns of Nimon'), John Kane, Hugh Thomas (inscrutably bespectacled here) and the grand old Michael Hordern in a cameo as Jupiter. Really, this is a competent but undeniably dull near-three hours to trudge through. One of the most curious of Shakespeare's plays is barely adapted; is it a history, a romance, a drama? A problem play...? The director is palpably at a loss as to define the material in his terms. It would take a rather more dynamic and thought through adaptation to bring something more out of the play. As it is, I was left un-enthused and unimpressed with this production, and by extension a play that seems a poor relation of the genuinely fascinating problem-comedies.