Jack Doyle Over all the BBC shows that it can outmatch the production value of Game of Thrones on a much smaller budget particularly its impressive battles. GoT has learned from this in recent years and no longer does a battle need to take up a whole episode.The first series, started amazingly strong with Richard II, great performance from Rory Kinnear and Patrick Stewart showed why he was one of the finest living actors with his John of Gaunt speech. Jeremy Irons was superb as the old King Henry IV, and Tom Hiddleston did a cracking job as the young Hal. He was weaker as Henry V, and Branagh version was still better, particularly on the St Crispins day speech.The second series makes a lot of odd choices. It starts well Anton Lesser returns as Exeter and Hugh Bonneville has a greatly nuanced performance as Gloucester. Ben Miles is a composite of Somerset and Suffolk, and the general machinations of political ambition are good. The wheels start to come of the wagon in sophie okonedo second scene, I'm not sure if she was directed to or chose to play the role as the villain from a panto, but her entire performance feels like it belongs in another play. Things only get worse when Benedict Cumberbatch lumbers into screen with full on cripface just being painfully embarrassing. It was a real pity the Jack Cade plot is lost as it juxtaposes nicely with the lords chasing the crown you have the common folk rising up to be free (though Shakespeare paints him as villain). All in all the best Shakespeare you'll see outside the Globe, but let down with some poor choices.

Jon Corelis Shakespeare's rather rarely performed history plays about late medieval English history.The first series is about three kings, the first of which is a looney-tune who can't do anything right, which is a bad thing in a king, so he very quickly ends up very dead. The second king is more OK, but he can't get anything important done because people keep trying to take him out, while his son wastes all his time boozing it up in this dive saloon with this bunch of Animal House type guys, one of whom, Fat Jack, is a real riot. The third king is this same son who decides that now that he is king he should get serious so he decides to conquer France, apparently not understanding that even if he conquers it, it will just get conquered back again.The second series is basically about this long gang war between two families, the North White Flowers and the West Blood Roses. Things get complicated because, on the one hand, the Flowers' capo is a heavy dude, while the Roses' boss is mental, but on the other hand, the Roses' boss's moll, French Maggie, is heavier than any dude around. In the end the last man standing is a Flower, Crooked Dick, but he don't stand for long.Great cast, great settings, great poetry. Extremely violent and bloody: think Game of Thrones without the skin. Check it out.

adam-scrivner At school we were force fed Macbeth (*yawn*). I loathed it. At the time I thought that Shakespeare (*yawn*) was a load of boring old rubbish, not a patch on the Terry Pratchett books that I enjoyed reading at home. It genuinely puzzled me that my teacher (I am thinking of you, Mrs Canning!) seemed to get so much out of studying the text with us.A couple of decades later I stumbled across The Hollow Crown on the TV, and there was nothing else on so I thought that I would give it a chance. What a revelation! It was so pleasant to watch. The quality of acting, the excellent settings, the obvious command and understanding of the text demonstrated by the cast. Boring old Shakespeare (*yawn*) now excitingly brought to life on the screen in front of me. Fantastic.I thoroughly enjoyed all of the Hollow Crown plays, from Richard II to Henry V. I am now looking forward to reading Henry VI. If, like me, you have never been a fan of Shakespeare (*yawn*), but you are curious to see what all of the fuss is about, then give the Hollow Crown series a look as you may just be surprised.

sarastro7 As I watched these Hollow Crown episodes, there was something about the delivery of the dialogue that seemed off to me. It was strangely flat and naturalistic, spoken like ordinary dialogue in historical fiction. Then it hit me: the verse is spoken in prose. This is a huge problem. We have amazing production values; sumptuous settings; virtuoso directing; good actors and visual splendor enough to knock anyone's socks off - and we also have Shakespeare's story and words. Tragically, however, without the verse delivery of the lines, we have none of the grandeur of the language; no poetry in the performance. The artfulness of Shakespeare's work has been excised.There is little to criticize about these versions besides this, but this point of criticism is an all-important one. Reducing Shakespeare's poetry to straight-forward prose is a terrible idea which takes away the audience's joy of the beauty of the words, and also deprives the actors of doing the kind of Shakespeare they want to be doing. I assume it was done to make Shakespeare's language more modern and understandable to an audience that is not weaned on Shakespeare, but to drag Shakespeare down to this level is artistic sabotage. I am deeply against it, and I hope they won't do it in the other upcoming BBC Shakespeare installments by producer Sam Mendes. Sadly, they probably will. Sigh. :-(