The Hollow Crown

For the next four Fridays, PBS's Great Performances lives up to its billing with a spectacular and dazzlingly acted mega-miniseries titled The Hollow Crown.

This isn’t just a story, it’s a history, and admirably, the work of the players has brought it to life.

Arguably you shouldn't miss any of The Hollow Crown. But the one you're commanded to watch is Richard II. [23 Sep 2013]

The performances are so wonderful it feels wrong to single any out. But Whishaw finds great power in stillness; Hiddleston fits himself admirably to his character's stages and turns of mind, resolving his coldness with his warmth, his cruelty with his generosity. And there is Beale's Falstaff--marvelously poignant, a scoundrel-hero, getting everything wrong. His sorrow at losing the transformed Hal is as tragic a moment as any here, his fall no less thunderous than Richard's.

[Director and co-writer Dominic Cooke] does a good job of supporting the story, working in an economical epic style--shooting in fields and forests and big medieval spaces, but with the crowds and pageantry dialed down--that keeps the action human and underscores the idea that this stretch of history boiled down to a family feud.

It is fully medieval both in tongue and in tone, and even more engaging than the initial installments of the first Hollow Crown series.

For the most part, the flexibility that television provides is used to good advantage in The Hollow Crown to clarify the action and enhance the dynamics. Only occasionally does it feel misplaced, as in “Richard II,” when [director Rupert] Goold goes all in with Jesus imagery.