The cherry orchard 1962 - A studio version of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production

Dorothy Tutin, John Gielgud and Judi Dench

(in The cherry orchard 1962)

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,3

Director: Michael Elliott
Main Cast: Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, Dorothy Tutin, Judi Dench

"The production is adapted by John Gielgud and directed by Michael Elliott and Michel Saint-Denis. It also stars Gielgud as the family patriarch, Gaev, and Peggy Ashcroft (Sunday Bloody Sunday) as Madame Ranevsky. A very young Judi Dench plays their head-in-the-clouds daughter, Anya, and in his earliest performance of the set, Ian Holm is Trofimov. This character is not only Anya's love interest, but as an adult student, he is another of Chekhov's thinking environmentalists. His vision of a future where humanity and the natural world will find some harmony is contrasted against the plight of Gaev and Ranevsky.
Having returned from a trip, they are told they must sell their family orchard in order to pay their debts, a situation they face with a stiff upper lip that looks a lot like denial. This subplot lends a nostalgia to the script, as Chekhov is examining the passing of an age. Class distinctions are clearly drawn, with an almost upstairs-downstairs structuring that cuts back and forth between the servant class and the landowners, a line that will be erased as the play goes on."

DVD links:

Brand 1959 - The BBC Television adaptation for World Theatre

Patrick McGoohan (playing Brand)

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,2

Director: Michael Elliott
Main Cast: Patrick McGoohan, Dylis Hamlett, James Maxwell, Patrick Wymark, Peter Sallis

"Henrik Ibsen’s Brand (1866) is rare amongst television adaptations of stage plays in that it was a drama never originally intended for theatrical production, but as an epic verse drama set out in dialogue as a script to be read. The play contains a scene of a storm at sea and concludes with an avalanche, both seemingly beyond the limitations of nineteenth century staging, and if performed uncut (as on its first staging in Stockholm in 1885). Patrick McGoohan stars in this adaptation ot the Henrik Ibsen play in which an uncompromising and ultimately tortured priest forces those around him to accept the only true path to God, including the residents of the village in which he was born. Through his fanatic beliefs he manages to cause the death of his wife, lose his son and eventually get exiled and stoned by the villagers."

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