Arriving on the heels of Othello, though actually predating it, the newest NT Live* show is co-directed by star Branagh and Broadway veteran Ashford and staged in a deconsecrated church.
The accountants must have spewed: the season sold out in nine minutes, and the venue accommodated only 281. But the show has other problems.
The traverse stage, the church's nave, is covered with peaty black soil, which works for the opening rain-sodden battle but then becomes a distraction: to keep things moving, characters tramp up and down a lot, but too many characters look like farmers coming home after milking; nuance is hard to convey when you're up to you ankles in mud.
More disturbingly, the delivery of the poetry often lacks subtlety, too.
Branagh's Shakespearean diction is the best of his generation, but many of his line readings here are idiosyncratic and irritating, simultaneously ponderous and rushed.
