Scene from: England my England
Composer: Henry Purcell
Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
November 1995 marked the tercentenary of the death of the great English composer, Henry Purcell. Tony Palmer directs this major musical film of Purcell's life, which features some of the foremost names in British drama. But this is no straightforward representation of the composer's life. Purcell died at the age of 35, but we only know in detail what he did during three of those years.
Writers, John Osborne and Charles Wood, have solved this problem brilliantly: A group of actors in the 1960s are performing Shaw's play In Good King Charles's Golden Day. They are very bored and one of the actors, who plays Charles II in Shaw's play, decides to write a play himself about this extraordinary period in English history. Think of Wren, he says, Newton, Bunyan, Restoration theatre, the Great Fire of London, the Plague, Nell Gwyn, Milton, Dryden, Pepys, and of course Purcell. Everyone knows the tunes of Purcell, but what do we know about him?
And in writing his play, 'Charles' becomes both the Charles II of history and Charles the actor of the 1960s struggling to make sense of this mystery. The film thus constantly moves back and forth between the 1660s and the 1960s; surprisingly, the two eras mirror each other exactly. The optimism and permissiveness of the 1960s are precisely reflected in the 1660s, with the wildness and excitement which accompanied the Restoration of the Monarchy.
The hero of the film, however, is not the riotous and colourful Charles II, but his court musician Henry Purcell. Work after work expresses the soul of this turbulent country, poured out in the music which becomes the narrative, driving force of the film. Eventually, the two strands of the film, the old and the new, are brought stunningly together. We understand that although Purcell the man arose directly out of the ferment of the time of Charles II, his genius was that he created music which speaks directly to all ages, as the film demonstrates.
Cast:
Charles: Simon Callow
Henry Purcell: Michael Ball
Mary: Rebecca Front
Nell: Lucy Speed
Pepys: John Shrapnel
Dryden: Robert Stephens
Bill: Bill Kenwright
Catalogue: 2564698832