Patricia O'Donovan

Excellent acting, however I could not follow all that was said by Kenneth Branagh because he spoke very, very quickly 90 per cent of the time. To follow English as it was spoken in the 17th century, you need to give time to the audience to make sense of the words. The emotions, the intensity were there, but most words got lost. I think this results in poorer acting because when the text is delivered so quickly, you feel they emerge from memory rather than the situation. Kenneth was pouring out the text he amazingly learnt so well. I missed the acting that led to those words as Peter Brook would say.