Coriolanus review - No Holds Bard as Hiddleston kicks ass and takes names as Coriolanus

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Shakespeare? Not quite. The quote actually comes from The Dark Knight but it does perfectly capture the dilemma facing the character of Caius Martius in William Shakespeare's final tragedy Coriolanus.
It is one of the Bard's lesser performed works, yet Ralph Fiennes directorial debut in 2011 managed to use the medium of film to bring its grisly battles and scenes of the angry masses to life.
For this production at the Donmar Warehouse, under Josie Rourke's direction, it has been stripped back (sometimes literally) to the bare essentials.
A brick wall becomes graffittied with messages that echo the voice of the people, the cries of the masses amplified through sound design and the battles kept off-stage save for one physical bout of hand-to-hand combat.
Rourke recognises that despite the scale and settings of his plays, Shakespeare's work is ultimately about the people and the dialogue.
The external conflicts give way to focus on the internal conflict within one man.
Caius Martius is a proud and decorated soldier, almost bred for the purpose of war by his mother. Yet while he is willing to fight and die for his city, he has a deep disdain for the politicians who govern it and the people he protects within it.
When he is elected to the senate after single-handedly taking an enemy city, a plot emerges to expose his true feelings to the people and strip him of his power (after all, who doesn't like to see a politician publically disgraced?), but it could have dangerous repercussions for Rome as hell hath no fury like a soldier scorned.
Shakespeare's plays have been performed in theatres for over 400 years and part of this longevity has been the ability to make these ancient texts accessible and appealing to new generations.
They can initially appear daunting to some but by adapting the plays to more modern settings and incarnations on stage (the National Theatre's recent runs of Hamlet and Othello for example), on film (Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet), or even making them watch it without realising (West Side Story, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Lion King), it helps to introduce new audiences to the Bard.
Another way of increasing awareness is by casting actors who are better known for their work in the world of TV and film. This year alone has seen the likes of James McAvoy, Jude Law and David Tennant take on some of the biggest roles in Shakespeare's back catalogue including Macbeth and Henry V.
Tom Hiddleston is the latest name to tackle the Bard but this is certainly not a case of mere stunt casting. Hiddleston is an experienced stage actor in his own right, winning an Olivier Award for Cymbeline, plus has a self-confessed love of Shakespeare, previously appearing in Othello at the Donmar and Prince Hal in the BBC's The Hollow Crown series.
He might be best known for being Loki of Asgard in Thor and The Avengers but he is burdened for glorious purpose on the stage once more.

Hiddleston commands the stage with a brooding, physical presence and also has a tremendous command of the Shakespearean dialogue, at ease delivering speeches to both armies of soldiers in the field of battle or politicians in the senate. The highlight comes during one of the few real monologues in the play, a spellbinding scene where Martius kneels before his enemy Aufidius and offers him his throat to spite the Romans who banished him. His Martius is not all pomp and bravado however; Hiddleston peels away the layers to reveal the sarcastic nature of his true feelings towards politics, the vulnerability at the heart of his Achilles heel, his mother, before being laid bare to the audience in a shower scene that exhibits the true cost of his many years in battle.
He is ably supported by a small yet hugely talented cast including Deborah Findlay as his mother Volumnia and Mark Gatiss as senator Menenius, who brings out the pathos of being turned away by the man he used to look on as a son and bleak future for his city for "This Coriolanus has grown from man to dragon".
The intimacy of the Donmar Warehouse space really helps to heighten the performances and even standing in the circle, you can still see Hiddleston's face begin to crack with emotion as his mother pleads with him to call off the siege of Rome.

While it is fair to say that there is not a bad seat in the (Ware)house, the problem is actually getting one as the popularity of the production meant that the entire run sold out as soon as tickets went on sale. However thanks to National Theatre Live audiences can watch the play performed and transmitted live via satellite at their local Picturehouse cinema on Thursday 30th January at 7.00pm.
Tickets can be booked here.

Much Ado About Nothing - GFF review

Back in February, the Glasgow Film Festival was lucky enough to host the first UK screening of Much Ado About Nothing or "Joss Whedon, I Know What You Did Last Midsummer Night's Dream".
Many people, including Joss himself, must have been asking the question "What does a man who has just directed The Avengers, the third highest grossing film of all time, do next?". Ay, therein lies the rub...
Yet rather surprisingly the answer was not "I'm going to Disneyland" but instead he took the opportunity to brush up his Shakespeare and film a black and white adaptation of one of his plays in his own house with all the parts being played by his actor friends, all in the space of a Twelfth night.
Two weeks in the Magic Kingdom it was not, or perhaps it was depending on your point of view.
Now modern takes on Shakespeare are nothing new and have taken many forms over the years from musical (West Side Story) to teenage rom-com (Ten Things I Hate About You) but what has always been tricky is combining a contemporary setting with the original text.
The most successful of these has been Baz Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet", which managesd to stay faithful to the Bard but opened up his work to a brand new generation.
It is certainly possible that Whedon's work could have a similar crossover appeal, especially with it being marketed as "From the director of The Avengers", and he's avoided the tragedy of "For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo", instead opting for a comedy of errors and one of Shakespeare's funniest that you could describe as "For never was a story of more wit, than this of Beatrice and her Benedick".
With the rapid-fire dialogue, battle of the sexes and striking black and white cinematography, this adaptation has the feel of a screwball comedy from the Thirties or Forties.
The Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn of this particular production are Alexis Denisof as and Amy Acker.
Both are completely at ease with the fast-paced, whip-smart dialogue and also adept at comedy as evidenced by Acker's pratfall down the stairs and the sequence where Denisof combat rolls outside a window whilst spying on a conversation about him.
Whedon's version certainly does play up the comedy but never at the expense of the romance which has a real spark, helped by the fact that the two have played lovers in the past on Angel.
By adding a scene at the beginning of the film which reveals a past tryst between Beatrice and Benedick, it puts a fresh spin on their relationship.
There is always a danger with this play that it could become the B&B show but of course this is a Joss Whedon movie, and therefore a perfect ensemble piece with not a weak link in the cast from Sean Maher's dastardly Don John, Agent Coulson Clark Gregg's loving father Leonato to Nathan Fillion's security chief Dogberry who secures the film's biggest laughs with his constant iterations that "forget not that I am an ass".
Casting his friends in the roles not only helped the production as Whedon had confidence in their abilities to deliver in such a short time scale but the sense of family that he has built up over the years with his actors transfers to the screen in this play where family plays an important role to the story.
The adaptation, set in the world of war heroes and politics, contemporises the text and while the words still hold their power (even if it does take a little time to acclimatise to the rhythms of the speech) some of the behaviour and romantic notions will still be considered odd and old-fashioned by some audiences but love is eternal and hey, remember this is Shakespeare, the man who had two teenagers kill themselves after knowing each other for only a week, so what are you going to do?!
So all's well that ends well for Joss Whedon because this labour of love is anything but lost because, measure for measure, Much Ado About Nothing is one of the best Shakespearean adaptations to ever grace the silver screen.

5 stars

Desperately trying not to geek out... Joss managed to keep his cool ;-)

Following the screening, Joss Whedon was on hand to take part in a Q&A and was met with a rapturous reception from the GFT audience.
Below is a video of the Q&A in which Joss was on excellent form and as eloquent, witty and self-deprecating as anyone who has listened to any of his DVD commentaries can attest to.
Highlights include talking about how he first developed a love for Shakespeare, the decision to film in black and white, winding up Nathan Fillion and that if he was to do another film like this following Avengers 2 it would be Hamlet.

P.S. The silly and off-topic Cabin In The Woods question was mine!