Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1984)

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Siskoid
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, is an odd Shakespeare play in many ways. He didn't write the first two acts, and it shows, having fobbed it off to hanger-on George Wilkins, now recognized as a veritable hack. It's an attempt to put too much on stage, doomed Mediterranean travels in the style of The Odyssey (and consequently requires a sometimes-tedious chorus to cover the scene changes). It ends like a comedy, but isn't funny. Its hero thinks he's in a tragedy, but turns out he's wrong. We're in the Bard's experimental phase for sure. I do consider this examination of fortune's connection to virtue a failure, with too many plots and far too little motivation attributed to the characters. However, there are sequences I would not part with . The amazingly ribald scenes in the bordello, where Pericles' daughter Marina (the real, if late-coming - not a pun - hero of the piece) manages to keep her virginity are the closest we get to true comedy, for example. The BBC production looks good, but doesn't "fix" the play's problems. Pericles is a cipher, too much happens off-screen, while tedious dances and rituals are shown in real time. At 3 hours, Pericles may well test your patience. 6 years 2 months ago