“Look Ye How They Change”: Close Reading Live Cinema Productions of Henry V, A Masterclass by John Wyver (Illuminations/RSC/University of Westminster)
Date: Wednesday 7 September, 2016
Time: 10:30am-12:30pm (Morning tea served from 10am)
Venue: Room 471, Global Change Institute (Building 20), The University of Queensland, St Lucia
RSVP: Email uqche@uq.edu.au by Friday 2 September, 2016
All welcome, but spaces are limited.
Live cinema broadcasts and recordings released on DVD and online are significantly enhancing the availability of a range of productions of most of Shakespeare’s plays. But the critical discussion of the form to date has been undertaken largely in conceptual and contextual terms. My interest in this class is to develop close readings of a short passage from Henry V in the 2015 RSC and 2012 Shakespeare’s Globe ‘live’ productions, and to compare the treatment in these with the same passage in British television productions of the play from 1957, 1979 and The Hollow Crown series in 2012, as well as the well- known films directed by Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989. In doing so, I hope to start developing an understanding of the specific screen languages and poetics of live cinema productions.
John Wyver is a writer and producer with Illuminations, a Media Associate with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Westminster. He has produced and directed numerous performance lms and documentaries about the arts, and his work has been honoured with a BAFTA, an International Emmy and a Peabody Award. He has produced three performance films for television with the RSC: Macbeth (2000), with Antony Sher and Harriet Walter; Hamlet (2009), with David Tennant; and Julius Caesar (2012). He also produced Gloriana, a Film (1999), directed by Phyllida Lloyd, and Macbeth (2010), directed by Rupert Goold. In 2013, he produced the RSC’s first live-to-cinema broadcast, Richard II: Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and is currently advising the RSC on its broadcasting strategy. He has written extensively on the history of documentary film, early television and digital culture, and at the University of Westminster is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded research project ‘Screen Plays: Theatre Plays on British Television’. He is the author of Vision On: Film, Television and the Arts in Britain (2007). He blogs regularly at the Illuminations website, and tweets as @Illuminations.
It is recommended that participants attend the 2016 Lloyd Davis Memorial Public Lecture, “Being There: Shakespeare, Theatre Television, and Live Cinema”, which John Wyver will deliver on Tuesday 6 September, 6pm, in the Terrace Room of the Sir Llew Edwards Building, UQ St Lucia. To RSVP for the lecture, please email by Friday 2 September.
