TV Review: Talking Heads -Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet / The Shrine

I've been spreading out watching the remake of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads over the summer, and with Nicholas Hytner's London Theatre Company behind the production it's perhaps not entirely surprising that one of the first tentative steps towards bringing live theatre back involves Hytner's Bridge Theatre staging a selection of the monologues with their new actors. I'm not currently planning on watching any of the planned double bills, but I do still have the last of my televised ones to catch up with, and as Sarah Frankcom's production opens with a shot of Maxine Peake's slippered feet walking down the stairs we're in for one of the more bizarre explorations of suburban kinks and secrets from the 1998 series, Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet. The second monologue to have been originally written for Patricia Routledge, Frankcom and Peake seem to have found their own take on the story.

Stage-to-screen review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (BBC Wales)

Russell T Davies' TV adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream first aired in 2016 as part of the BBC's commemoration of the fourth centenary of Shakespeare's death. I had planned to watch it at the time but never got round to it - that summer was one of those particularly full of competing productions of the play and I'd seen quite enough of them. Apart from that, it was clear from the opening shot of Athens as a fascist state draped in red, white and black ersatz-swastika insignia that Davies' version was going to be one of those defined entirely by the line "I wooed thee with my sword" (not necessarily a problem in itself, by this point I think I was mainly tired of people thinking they'd discovered a uniquely dark take on the play, when in fact I would say bad-guy Theseus was the standard interpretation of the 2010s.) In any case, with "Culture in Quarantine" the latest BBC strand to heavily feature Shakespeare, the film got repeated on BBC Four, giving it another month on iPlayer for me to finally catch up.

Theatre review: The Welkin

After adapting Chimerica for TV Lucy Kirkwood returns to the stage for a play that feels equally epic in ambition, even if instead of spanning continents this one is largely set in a single room. It does have its thoughts on the stars though, as The Welkin takes place in Suffolk in 1759, the year in which Edmond Halley had predicted the comet that would eventually bear his name would appear. It's a scientific discovery that's captured the imagination of people even in remote, small towns like this one, with everyone regularly mentioning it, hoping they might catch a glimpse of the celestial body. But if human knowledge is expanding to include the heavens, women like midwife Lizzy Luke (Maxine Peake) find that progress closer to home is much slower than they would like. Summoned grudgingly away from her laundry, Lizzy's expertise has had her requested by a local judge to take part in one of the few areas of Georgian law left to the judgement of women.

Theatre review: How To Hold Your Breath

Vicky Featherstone has had a rather unusual tendency since taking over the Royal Court, of matching other directors with scripts they can make a lot out of, while keeping some decidedly dodgy ones for herself. It's a trend that continues with her latest directorial effort, a take on the financial crisis and the future of Europe... at least maybe that's what it is? In Zinnie Harris' How To Hold Your Breath, Dana (Maxine Peake) is about to apply for a research post at an Egyptian university, but a couple of weeks beforehand she has a fateful one-night stand: She sleeps with a man who's mistaken her for a prostitute and when, the next morning, he realises his mistake, insists on paying her anyway. Dana refuses to take his money, but Jarron (Michael Shaeffer) turns out to be a demon, and much like a Lannister, a demon always pays his debts.

Stage-to-screen review: Henry IV Part 2 (BBC Hollow Crown)

"Previously on Henry IV" - heh, I did quite enjoy the fact that Richard Eyre took the opportunity to do a classic TV recap at the top of his Hollow Crown film of Henry IV Part 2. Handy way to get the credits out of the way without putting them over the action, too. Although both are highly regarded, the second of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays seems to be considered marginally the lesser of the two, and if the production's not good enough it can sometimes come across as a poor retread of Part 1. Done well though it can shine in its own right (it does contain a lot of the sequence's iconic scenes and lines) and in my opinion this is the better of the two BBC adaptations. With Henry IV (Jeremy Irons) ailing, a second rebellion threatens to rise up out of Hotspur's failed attempt - but this one will be dealt with a lot more strategically and with less bloodshed. Hal (Tom Hiddleston) knows the time is approaching for him to take over as king, and starts to plan how he'll get rid of his group of hangers-on, led by Falstaff.

Stage-to-screen review: Henry IV Part 1 (BBC Hollow Crown)

Turns out becoming King of England will really age you, but on the plus side it'll restore your hairline: Henry IV regenerates from Rory Kinnear in the first part of the BBC's Hollow Crown quartet of Shakespeare Histories, to Jeremy Irons in Henry IV Part 1. Richard Eyre takes over directing duties for the middle two plays, and brings much more washed-out colours to reflect a more sombre reign than Richard II's. Haunted by the fact that he deposed a king and could face the same fate, Henry faces rebellion from Harry Percy (known as Hotspur) egged on by his uncle Worcester. Meanwhile Henry's son Hal (Tom Hiddleston) appears to be a very unworthy heir to the throne, spending all his time with the drunken old knight Falstaff and an assortment of misfits in an Eastcheap tavern.