The set includes:

The Changeling, a well regarded tragedy (with some comic subplot elements) from the Jacobean era, has the florid language that was still in vogue post-Shakespeare, some of it quite beautiful and affecting, as well as the patently histrionic plot elements that color even the Bard's tragic efforts. Mirren portrays Beatrice-Joanna, a two-faced (one might even make the case for three-faced) ingénue, betrothed to a man she doesn't love, in love with a man to whom she isn't betrothed, and loved herself by a servant to her father. Beatrice-Joanna manages to utilize the servant's obsession with her to her own advantage in ridding herself of her unwanted fiancé, only with (as in all good tragedies) unexpected results.

While the play is splendidly performed and is redolent with gorgeous language spoken gorgeously, it also suffers from the odd decision to have all monologues spoken as voice-overs, giving a somewhat uneasy contemporary inflection to the proceedings. It's especially distracting when whole chunks of scenes are nothing but actors grimacing, sighing, and otherwise facially indicating the emotions their disembodied voices are narrating. There are also a couple of inept directorial choices, notably a slow-motion dream sequence evincing Beatrice's marriage night fears, that again are discordant with the otherwise historically intact presentation.

The production is aided by excellent performances not only by Mirren, but also Stanley Baker as De Flores, the servant, and especially Brian Cox as her purported true love, Alselmero. It will probably delight fans of the Bourne films to see a very young Cox as a romantic lead.

George Bernard Shaw's lesser-known The Apple Cart features little of the famous Shavian wit and a surplus of some peculiar Shavian royalist philosophy, delivered in sometimes endless "speechifying," all to a point that few non-British audiences are going to find compelling, namely the survival of the monarchy. Set in an unspecified future (which due to the production's 1975 genesis now looks hilariously dated), The Apple Cart details the tribulations of one King Magnus (a bit of Shaw understatement--well, maybe not) who has to decide what's more important, his throne or his power. This may be an interesting production to compare to Mirren's own work in The Queen, which dealt with some of the same issues without the overt preaching one finds here, but as a play itself, it's woefully lacking in drama, and Mirren herself plays a relatively minor role, Orinthia, the King's mistress. While the repartee between Magnus and Orinthia never rises to Pygmalion levels, it is by far the most enjoyable part of this dated and less than stellar piece of Shaw's, though it may set some feminists' teeth on edge with such lines as Magnus' ostensible jokes about Orinthia needing a good kicking and her lack of intellectual acuity. Nigel Davenport as Magnus brings some playfulness to his role, and Mirren is quite fetching as his auburn-haired temptress.

For two very different reasons, the next two productions fare noticeably better than the historical treatises seen thus far. Perhaps because it is not an adaptation of a preexisting play, Caesar and Claretta, written for television as part of the BBC's "Private Affairs" series, has little of the awkwardness that sometimes hampered the first two plays in this set. A fascinating exploration of the relationship between Mussolini and his longtime mistress Claretta Petacci on the last night of their lives, the teleplay is compact and intimate, focusing on the pair after the fall of Italy, resulting in their capture by Italian Communists. Robert Hardy portrays Mussolini as surprisingly vulnerable, interspersed with moments of belligerence. Mirren's Claretta seems at times petulant (thinking more about getting a cigarette somehow than the encroaching sounds of the battle outside), and certainly naïve (having first fallen for Mussolini when she was an adolescent) and not entirely aware of the circumstances in which she finds herself, until perhaps too late. This is a beautifully performed pas de deux between two exquisitely in-tune tune actors, and the historical, as opposed to the interpersonal, elements (brought in largely through the supporting cast), instead of being a rote recitation of events, actually help give impact to the doomed relationship of Il Duce and his mistress.

Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist, does well precisely because of its contemporary setting. Hampton (probably best known for Dangerous Liaisons), whose witty dialogue and wordplay are at times reminiscent of Tom Stoppard, crafts an unusual amalgam of character and plot in this piece, which starts out seemingly about playwriting itself, and then careens around various strange corners to involve everything from political assassination to masturbation to anagrams. It's a testament to Hampton's craft that these disparate elements are all woven together into a cohesive, and frequently very funny, whole. The opening sequence, with two professors offering a young playwright feedback on his newest piece, is a scathingly hilarious critique of, dare I say, critics, as both learned men take diametrically opposed viewpoints on various pieces of the play, frequently without any real reason. It becomes virtually Stoppard-esque at the point where the playwright takes offense at the one professor who repeatedly tells him he likes the piece.

The Philanthropist centers on the insulated intellectual life of one of the professors, Philip, who seems almost absurdly removed from both the political and interpersonal turmoil surrounding him. Mirren again is relegated to a supporting role, this time Celia, the fiancée of Philip. Unfortunately Philip's attentions may have wandered to another woman. It's typical of Hampton's wit that when Mirren acuses Philip of philandering, she states, "I suppose you were discussing morphology with her, or checking her vowel sounds." A fresh faced ingénue when this piece was produced, Mirren brings a great deal of spunk and spark to her role (though she claims in an extra interview that she didn't fully understand it at the time), and is surrounded by a bevy of superb English actors, including Ronald Pickup as Philip. Though in critiquing the play that opens this piece, Philip and his cohort decry Pirandello and his self-referential gimmickry, Hampton's subversive genius becomes apparent when the end of The Philanthropist seems to be melding into the opening play itself, only to pay off in one final delicious sight gag. This production is one of the highlights of this set.

One hardly thinks of Peter Pan's J.M. Barrie as a founder of screwball comedy, but his The Little Minister calls up echoes of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, albeit in a different century and in Scotland. When one considers that Hepburn herself made the film version of the play in 1934 perhaps the evocation is not so farfetched after all. The play is an interesting amalgam of class conflict, focusing on the noble commonpeople warring with the common nobility, British hegemony over Scotland, and, most importantly, the burgeoning love relationship between Babbie (Mirren), an English noblewoman who disguises herself as a gypsy in order to rabble-rouse, and Rev. Dishart (Ian Ogilvie), a disheveled and frequently confused cleric about two steps behind Babbie, both literally and figuratively, in the best screwball tradition.

The humor is largely understated and, as in the best comedies, comes from the interplay of characters. Mirren does a nice job of differentiating her "gypsy" Babbie from her noble one, and Ogilvie is delightful as the besieged minister. Some viewers may wish to use the subtitle option, as the free-flowing Scottish accents are particularly thick and at times near impossible to understand.

The Country Wife, a bawdy Restoration comedy by William Wycherly, benefits immensely in this adaptation by no "modernizing" or overt adaptative "tricks" for television. It's refreshing, then, to see Anthony Edwards as the ne'er-do-well womanizer, the not too subtly named Horner, address the camera directly just as he would have the audience in Restoration times, a practice that continues for practically all of the characters throughout the play. Mirren in this one is the similarly unsubtly named Mrs. Pinchwife, one of Horner's many conquests, though perhaps one of the more innocent ones.

The plot (and there are actually several interwoven, as is the case in many Restoration comedies) revolves around Horner's scam to convince people he's impotent. This serves two purposes: it puts menfolk at ease when Horner is around their wives, and it gives Horner an immediate barometer on which women are ripe for the plucking, as they react so negatively to an un-horned man. After having seduced most of the other women in the cast, he turns his sights to Mirren's Mrs. Pinchwife, a young naïf married to a man twice her age and unschooled in the ways of the world. Suffice it to say Horner is a gifted tutor, and Mrs. Pinchwife's exploits soon match her teacher's.

The Country Wife's sly humor (some of the lines are delivered with a literal wink) and towing to a historically accurate presentation line make it completely enjoyable, if surprisingly racy at times. England was just recovering from Puritanism when this play was originally written, and some may argue the pendulum may have swung a bit too far to the other side, but if you enjoy farces with a liberal dose of sex, The Country Wife will more than likely delight you. It is sumptuously mounted, with some impressive costumes and nicely detailed sets adding to the 17th century patina.

Undoubtedly the most unusual offering in this set is Blue Remembered Hills, a strange concoction by Dennis Potter, whom most American audiences will know as the writer of the original television versions of The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven. As with most of Potter's work, there's a gimmick to Blue Remembered Hills, but it's one that is at once strange and raises a fundamental question as to Potter's intent in the piece: the teleplay is about children, but they are all played by adults. The title of the play comes from a poem by A.E. Housman which is an ode to the halcyon days of childhood and lost innocence told from the standpoint of adulthood. So is that Potter's point? That we carry our childhoods with us forever? That would all be fine and well if the play were indeed a rosy-eyed reminiscence of carefree days gone by, or even of innocence lost. Instead we get seven kids playing in an English forest in 1943, who quickly seem like co-ed precursors to the castaways in Lord of the Flies. To say that the willful killing of a helpless animal is only one of the horrors these children visit on each other is an understatement. It's hard to feel these characters' innocence has been lost when some of their actions, though ostensibly "childlike," are so vile to begin with.

Potter's central thesis of man's inhumanity to man starting early in life is certainly potent and visceral. And there's really nothing wrong with the writing and characters, other than a frankly shocking climax that seems to come out of nowhere. What may be impossible for some viewers to overcome is the gimmick itself--it's simply distracting to have adults of various ages (from a winsome Mirren to some of the men who are seemingly decades older) playing kids of around seven or eight years old. It would be fascinating to see Blue Remembered Hills performed by age-appropriate actors, as it is, as with most Potter, a completely unique piece of writing. As it stands, it's a fascinating, but ultimately failed, experiment.

The ghost of Katharine Hepburn once again haunts another of these plays, this time Mrs. Reinhardt, which kept reminding me of Kate's classic film with David Lean, Summertime, only this time we get a disillusioned wife, instead of a spinster, and the south of France instead of Venice. Otherwise, though, the emotional territory is much the same, with Mirren's Mrs. Reinhardt leaving her philandering husband in search of herself in a new locale, becoming involved with a seemingly charming American portrayed by Brad Davis. Of course things don't turn out quite the way she imagines, and there's a good degree of ambivalence that colors a lot of this piece, actually helping lend it a degree of veracity.

Mirren manages to find a lot of nuance in what could otherwise be a one-note character, helped by the dramatic structure of frequent flashbacks, showing the devolution of her marriage. Both Davis as her would-be new love and Ralph Bates as her cheating husband do exceptionally fine work as well. The teleplay was filmed on location and therefore has a more polished look than some of the other studio bound shot on video pieces in this set.

The final offering in this mammoth set is a little oddity entitled Soft Targets, a Cold War era character study of an émigré Russian journalist (perhaps spy) Alexei, portrayed by Ian Holm, living in London, where through the machinations of a British Home Office agent (who may or may not be spying on him), he is introduced to the lovely Celia, played by Mirren. The proletariat Alexei is then taken on an apparently mad escapade of adventures, all the while convinced he is part of some huge counterintelligence plot, until Celia mysteriously disappears, which only heightens Alexei's suspicions. The actual denouement is a good deal less Le Carre and more soap opera, which sums up the strange tonal dialectic running through this piece. On one level, there's the spooky music and rain streaked streets redolent of a spy drama, and on the other hand there's a basically very engaging two character interaction that has little to do with politics and more to do with isolation.

Holm and Mirren are both exceptional in their roles, bringing the wounded sides of these characters' soul out with some alarming tenderness. Cameo spotters will enjoy ferreting out both Rupert Everett and Julian Sands in early, minimal roles.

The DVD

Video:
With the exception of Mrs. Henderson and Soft Targets, both of which were filmed, the rest of these are shot on video. There's occasional very slight abrasion to various masters, as might be expected of something 30 years old. Colors are generally decent, and contrast is acceptable, if not spectacular.

Sound:
All of the stereo soundtracks are pretty standard television shot-on-the-fly fare. Don't expect a lot of attention to separation, but fidelity is just fine.

Extras:
There are two interviews with Mirren presented as extras. The first is a recent one wherein she reminisces briefly about all of the productions in this set. The more interesting one is a vintage 1975 interview with Michael Parkinson, where she is introduced as the "sex queen of the Royal Shakespeare Company" and then spends several awkward opening minutes discussing her "attributes." What is almost spooky, considering her work in The Queen, is how remarkably similar she looks to Princess Di in this early piece--they could well be sisters.

Final Thoughts:
Mirren is always fascinating to watch, even when her material is a bit spotty, as it is in a few of these offerings. On balance, though, the positives outweigh the negatives in this set, providing hours of rarely seen, and sometimes very effective, "television theater." Recommended.

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"G-d made stars galore" & "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?" ZMK, modern prophet