The Merchant of Venice (1972)

This TV production, a BBC Play of the Month, is a pretty complete version of the play, retaining all of the many interwoven sub-plots involving the more minor characters in addition to the famous bargain and court case between Antonio, the titular "merchant of Venice" (as if there's only one of those, mew), and the moneylender Shylock.

Antonio is here played by Charles "it's just a jump to the left" Gray, Shylock by Frank "Witchsmeller Pursuivant" Finlay. Two other characters could lay claim to being the main character of the play, these being the lovers Bassanio (Christopher "Sharaz Jek" Gable) and Portia (Maggie Smith), because this is an oddly structured play where all of these four take it in turns to be at the centre of the drama, as their various plotlines weave in and out of the focus. Antonio, titular or no, is a mostly passive character, who spends much of his time in Shylock's power, and is saved through the efforts of others, not himself. Portia at first appears to be little more than a plot device - a wealthy and beautiful lady to be won like a prize by Bassanio, but then the play turns it around and it is her who saves Antonio's life at the end.

As for Shylock... well, every adaptation of the play has to decide where to set the balance between his being an outright baddy and a sympathetic antagonist. This leans more towards the baddy side than other, more recent versions I have seen, especially in the courtroom scene where Shylock sharpens and brandishes the knife with which he intends to cut the "pound of flesh" from Antonio. Though even then Finlay plays him as being more out for revenge for all the wrongs that his enemies - of whom Antonio is only the focal point - have done him than his being intrinsically evil.

Something that struck me upon this watch is how this play is full of callbacks to other Shakespeare plays. Most obviously, Portia is compared to the other Portia from Julius Caesar:

"Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued

To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia"

Other references seem crowbarred in, such as this one to Troilus and Cressida:

"The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees

And they did make no noise, in such a night

Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls

And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,

Where Cressid lay that night."

And this is immediately followed by lines that refer to part of A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"In such a night

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself

And ran dismay'd away."

There may be others I failed to pick up on, or which may only possibly be deliberately evoking other plays - such as a mention of an unseen character "Falconbridge, the young baron of England," which might be taken to mean Robert Falconbridge (sometimes spelled "Faulconbridge"), a very minor character in The Life and Death of King John.

A bit more effort has gone into making the setting look and feel like Venice than in some other adaptations, which might as well have been Tudor England. While hamstrung by being obviously studio based, even for its exterior scenes, it goes out of its way to feature images of winged lions (symbol of the Republic of Venice), the bridges and landmarks of Venice in the background, and most all in the Duke's costume - recognisably this "Duke" is the Doge of Venice.

In 1981, so less than 10 years later, the BBC did The Merchant of Venice again. This was just as studio-bound as the 1972 play, with less effort in the sets, and was probably most notable for starring John "Bergerac" Nettles as Bassanio and Warren Mitchell as Shylock. I actually think the older version is the superior, with a better ensemble cast, although Warren Mitchell made for the better Shylock.