Thursday, August 11, 2011

Inspector Lewis and The Merchant of Venice

“Quality of Mercy.” By Alan Plater. Perf. Kevin Whately, Jo Herbert, Bryan Dick, and Ronan Vibert. Dir. Bille Eltringham. Inspector Lewis. Season 3, episode 2 [also listed as Season 2, episode 6]. BBC. 29 March 2009. DVD. PBS, 2010.
Mysteries invoking Shakespeare are often difficult to write about. Being analytical without giving spoilers is difficult.

Bardfilm circumvents that difficulty by, in this instance at least, being merely informative! An episode of Inspector Lewis is set among a small theatre troupe putting on The Merchant of Venice. Would anyone care to speculate on the murder weapon? In any case, the episode itself is well done (although the themes of the Shakespeare play aren't integrated into the show itself to any great degree). Here's the opening sequence, which shows the director being perhaps a bit too harsh on the actors. Enjoy!

Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

 —The Tempest