Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of Foyle's War

"Bleak Midwinter." By Foyle's War. Season 4, episode 3 (in American markets); Season 5, episode 1 (in British markets). ITV. 11 February 2007. DVD. Acorn Media, 2007.

If you're patient with British dramatic television series, they will usually reward you with a Shakespeare allusion or two—or even, if you're lucky, a quotation. For example, I detected no Shakespeare in the first season of the immensely-popular Downton Abbey, but they squeezed a quick quote (or, if you're particular, a quick truism—or even a quick cliché) from The Tempest into the second season's opening episode. If you're keeping score, the quote was "a brave new world" (see image below).

It took four (or five, depending on how you count them) seasons for Foyle's War to provide a Shakespeare quote (unless, as I readily admit may be the case, I missed an earlier one). In the clip below, Samantha Stewart is driving Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle from an interview with a witness back to Police Headquarters. She misquotes Shakespeare—only slightly—and we can see Foyle's hesitation before he corrects her.

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war!
Julius Caesar, III.i.273

I always want more, but hearing a Shakespeare quote like that is a bit like meeting an old friend on the street. And that's always nice.


Downton Abbey Quotes Shakespeare.

Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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2 comments:

Juliana L'Heureux said...

Loved the Foyle's War Clip, quote from Julius Caesar "Havoc and let slip the dogs of war...." thank you. Nice piece.

Juliana L'Heureux said...

Michael Kitchen must have enjoyed the "Havoc, let slip the dogs of war..." dialogue, talented and skilled actor as he is.

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