A Present for Mr Patten

Shakespeare – the animated tales offers the work of our greatest playwright in an entirely new form as complementary book, video and network, television programme. Leon Garfield describes his approach to writing the scripts.

A little more than two years ago, I was invited to prepare six of Shakespeare’s plays for a series of animated films, each to last half an hour.

I agreed with the utmost trepidation. So far as I could see, I was but slenderly qualified for such work. I had no experience of animation; I had only written one television script, and a few pieces for radio. Although I’d written a book of Shakespeare stories, which had been kindly received, I was no Shakespeare scholar. All that stood in my favour was a deep love and admiration for the plays, and an ability, acquired over many arduous years, to tell a story. So I set to work.

Before embarking on each play, I made it my business to become familiar with the work of most of the great critics and commentators from Dry den onwards. It seemed to me that the plays were so vast and various that it would be the height of folly to tamper with them without guidance. I became a most devious conversationalist, who was capable of turning even an innocent discussion of holidays into Shakespeare. If someone had been to Venice, then Othello stalked into the talk; if to Greece, then it was Athens and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Nothing was safe. I would listen in silence, hawk-eared, waiting my chance to pounce. Fielding once said that he did not mind any man riding his hobby-horse, providing he did not demand all and sundry to mount up behind him. Alas! my hobby-horse became more populated than Tom Pearce’s grey mare!

The choice of the six plays was not difficult. After all, with such an embarrassment of riches to choose from, any six would have done. Nonetheless, there were certain considerations that had to be borne in mind. Firstly, they should be plays with an international appeal … which rather ruled out the Histories. Secondly, a selection ought to be made that gave some hint of the enormous variety of Shakespeare’s work. And thirdly, from my own point of view as script-writer, they should be plays that lent themselves most readily to drastic abbreviation. For instance, Antony and Cleopatra, though possibly the most wonderful of all, would be more grievously injured by reduction than, say, Romeo and Juliet.

As a rule, the Tragedies presented fewer problems, for their stories tend to be monolithic: even a cut-down version of Macbeth retains a great deal of power. But the Comedies are another matter. The construction is much more intricate, so that the removal of scenes and sub-plots, frequently results in total nonsense. A Midsummer Night’s Dream requires all its parts, as they interact with one another in a manner that makes it impossible to dispense with any. So also with The Tempest; while Twelfth Night presented problems of quite another kind. As with The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It there is a great outsider, Malvolio, who, although not vital to the progress of the love plot, towers over the play and has embedded himself in the world’s memory.

Of the many difficulties that I faced, one of the most arduous was the preservation of Shakespeare’s miraculous sense of dramatic time. Often, this had to be suggested by discreet passages of narrative; but even then, much, much had to be abandoned. In fact, every cut was to the play’s detriment; all I could possibly hope to do was staunch the flow of blood from the wounds, and leave a little life in the lacerated remains.

But all this is on the negative side. There have been advantages. The work of the Russian animators is unfailingly brilliant. Each one has proved to be an artist of astonishing sensitivity, judgement and taste. Their knowledge of Shakespeare is profound and their love for him is no less than my own. Although I suggested imagery that might supply huge, missing fragments, as often as not they devised images of their own that were wonderfully potent and revealed dimensions in the plays out of all proportion to the all-too-short time allowed.

I remember, in a discussion about my script for Macbeth with the director – a Russian of Dostoyevskyan proportions – he thumped on the table so violently as to make the bottles of vodka jump in terror, and demanded more Shakespeare and less narration … in fact, he wanted more Shakespeare than could possibly have been uttered in the time available, even had it been done at the speed of a Rossini finale. I also recall talking about Hamlet to its director – a most radiant lady! – and hearing how she wished to incorporate images that would turn and turn in upon themselves; and the director of Twelfth Night – with a distracting smile that would have done justice to Viola herself – explained how much she could achieve by body language, and so had no need of narrative to labour the point.

And so I learned and learned from these talented people; and my scripts underwent more changes than the moon. I know that many may disagree, and even be shocked by what has been done; but these films are not to be looked at as versions of the plays, but rather as fragments, reassembled into something new.

I have, wherever possible, incorporated famous lines; but never at the expense of the narrative. The demands of the story have always come first. Of course, in terms of the totality of the plays, the losses are enormous; but in terms of entertainment, there is nothing but gain. The narrative, I admit, is open to criticism; the dialogue is beyond reproach.

Peter Thomas assesses the success of the project and its relevance to current classroom realities. . .

In puppet show and video, in workshop and in class, Shakespeare is alive and well. The active work stimulated by Rex Gibson’s `Shakespeare and Schools’ project lets pupils of all abilities and ages enjoy the plays, and appreciate their insights into love, conscience and the shabbiness of politicians. Shakespeare has ceased to be a cultural fossil.

Yet, such is the dismal state of education at the moment, the device which opened up Literature to all is being destroyed. Government policy has, through the Secondary Examinations and Assessment Council, vandalised teachers’ efforts and imperilled a great cultural achievement. All coursework Literature study has been outlawed, and end-of-course timed exams are to return. This is bad news for those who understand children – and for those who care for the teaching of Literature.

Now Shakespeare has acquired Statutory Order status, and all 14-year-olds must take a written test on one of his plays next June. So what is this? A sign of government support for teachers’ enthusiasm? Sadly, no. The enshrining of Shakespeare has nothing to do with bringing plays to life. Statutory Shakespeare erects an icon for worship half in ignorance, half in awe. A compulsory Shakespeare test for all will do nothing for Shakespeare or for children.

The timing of Heinemann/BBC Animated Tales could not be better: schools, notified in September that children will be tested on one of three plays in June, will be ordering sets for the year group. No good dishing out the dog-eared jobs in the stockroom: they could kill teenage interest instantly. Teachers who are passionate about Shakespeare know that studying a whole play will not make children enjoy it, nor help the morale of the weakest. We need editions that are pupil-friendly, good to handle and good to look at.

And The Animated Tales are certainly all that. The books are large-format, well-illustrated and the print is easy on the eye. Each of the six plays has been skilfully abridged by Leon Garfield, who has written clear narrative links between scenes and speeches. The text is Shakespeare’s own, with some purging of obscurities. Those who despise abridgement will carp at cuts (no Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Osric or second Gravedigger in Hamlet) and purists will be annoyed that the blank verse is laid out as continuous prose. Carpers and purists can stick to uncut texts, but teachers of real kids will find The Animated Tales a blessing: short enough to hold interest and long enough to prepare Key Stage 3 questions which meet Lord Griffiths’ taxing criterion that they test knowledge of the story. They make an excellent introduction to the plays, and teachers feeling guilty about using abridgements can add any missing bits through reprographics. In any case, the plays set for KS3 may be re-studied by some classes at KS4, with a fuller text for fuller study.

The videos which accompany the texts (purchased separately) will give all pupils a lively start to study. These half-hour animated versions produced in Russia use a variety of techniques selected to match the tone of each play. Twelfth Night and The Tempest use puppet animation, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet use cel animation, and Hamlet uses oil on glass, a technique which gives a sombre sepia quality to labyrinthine Elsinore. I had feared that the animations would be a vulgar hybrid in the idiom of kids’ comics – Tintin of Athens or Midsummer Night’s Disney – but they avoid such a pitfall. The Hamlet, especially, animates character superbly, with a carnal and shifty Claudius, whose eye movements as Ophelia scatters her flowers, range through fear, guilt, mistrust and cunning. And in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, no teenage viewer could miss the coy sexiness of Hermia’s insistence on separate sleeping knolls, or the frustrated hopes of the expectant Lysander. The facial animation on these, and on the starkly shadowed Macbeth, appealed to me more than the woodenness of the puppet versions, but they have other merits: the repulsiveness of Caliban in The Tempest is wonderful, and the toytown quaintness of Illyria is justified by the puppetry of Fate and Love which is so much at the heart of Shakespeare’s play. Where I wanted more – like the mechanicals’ ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ show, I know I can use class performance to prove that active Shakespeare can beat even video wizardry.

All of the voices are done by well-known English actors, and there is pleasing clarity of diction and expression throughout. Texts and videos will be an asset for teachers of KS3 – and beyond. For today’s video-blasé pupils, this collaboration is a bridge which takes them to the centre and not the shores of Shakespeare country. All praise to the BBC for screening the plays for a wide audience. Shakespeare lives, as Michael Bogdanov has proved, when he is seen as a popular artist, pleasing a contemporary audience.

The Animated Tales are more than a Reader’s Digest up-date of Lamb. They are performances with their own artistic integrity, valuable in themselves and for their stimulus to discussion of text and performance. Teachers for whom Shakespeare is a dramatist, not a political totem, will use them to discuss editing and transposition, just as they may use scripts by Croft and Perry, Clement and Le Frenais, and John Sullivan, the inheritors of Shakespeare’s irony, pathos and the wit that laughs on pride and smiles at dreams. Comparing Dad’s Army with Much Ado About Nothing, Blackadder with Twelfth Night, and Smith and Jones to the Gravediggers in Hamlet, help to animate Shakespeare’s technique and intentions.

But this is outlawed territory: SEAC has specifically banned the study of such texts in one KS4 Literature syllabus as a `disgrace’. Living, as we are, in dark times, The Animated Tales seem like a ray of light. They could turn out to be the only thing on the English teaching front to gain equal approval from pupils, teachers and the mad dogma of government.

Peter Thomas is Head of English at Wheatley Park School, Oxfordshire, and a senior moderator for GCSE Literature.

The plays are available in paperback from Heinemann Young Books at £3.99 each:

Hamlet, 0 434 962317; Macbeth, 0 434 96230 9; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 0 434 96233 3; Romeo and Juliet, 0 434 96234 1; The Tempest, 0 434 96229 5; Twelfth Night, 0 434 96232 5

A hardback volume containing all six plays also comes from Heinemann: Shakespeare – The Animated Tales, 0 434 962228 7, at £15.00

BBC Educational Publishing editions cost £4.99 and contain an educational supplement:

Hamlet, 0 563 35188 8; Macbeth, 0 563 35186 1; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 0 563 35184 5; Romeo and Juliet, 0 563 35183 7; The Tempest, 0 563 35189 6; Twelfth Night, 0 563 35185 3

BBC2 transmissions start weekly from Monday, 9 November at 7.40 pm.

Videos of all six plays are distributed by Island World Communications.