Pippat

Divine, there is no better way to explain the gender segregation on the stage than this film. I show scenes 1,5,8 and 12 to enable them to understand Charles II proclamation that only women would be allowed to play women after so many years of young boys playing the girls' roles. Rupert Everett is divine as the King, especially when he is in drag in one of the Court Musicales which was exempt from the law he has just passed. And great that they kept the Danes/Crudup romance ambiguous at the end.

99 _0%

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) - Rated 30 Oct 2010

Luscious tuscan landscape, glowing, full bodied performances by Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh, the reigning monarchs of Britfilm in the 1990s. Lush inspired, mainly untampered with script, Michael Keaton is hilarious with Ben Elton. My non-Shakesperean co-watcher said that it was one of the few Shakesperean films he has understood simply by the quality of the acting and crispness of style. Emma T is a classically Shakesperean heroine; feisty, with a sharp tongue, and no botox!