Actors and film crew prepare to shoot the scene. Onscreen text reads 'Shakespeare Unbound - The Tempest 5.1 - In conversation with John Bell'.
John Bell is interviewed by James Evans.
JAMES EVANS:
John, why do you think Prospero breaks his staff and renounces magic?
JOHN BELL:
I think the play has a lot to do about giving up things. Uh, Prospero has to give up, first of all, his status, his power as a magician, his status as the duke - he hands that over to his children.
Shot of John Bell performing Prospero's soliloquy.
JOHN BELL:
He has to give up his anger, his vengeance, his wanting to control people. He has to let all of that go. So, really, the play is about... giving up all those powers. And I think, in these terms, the book and the staff represent magic. And magic's an inferior thing. It's not as good as spirituality. It's a primitive thing. So you've got to get rid of that, and the trappings of magic, and go for true spirituality, which is giving up all of that and finding yourself.
JAMES EVANS:
Shakespeare, in his late plays, has these themes of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption. Is that a theme across a lot of his work?
JOHN BELL:
It certainly is the theme of the later work, very, very strongly - they're all about that. You see traces of it earlier on, but it gets muddied. I mean, Portia does a great speech about mercy, and then she proceeds to strip Shylock of all his worldly goods. So it's always compromised in some way. But these last plays are uncompromising - about forgiveness and reconciliation. And that's the hardest thing to do. That's why Prospero finds - the hardest thing is to forgive. And Ariel has to persuade him, 'If I were human, I would do it.' And Prospero says, 'Well, if you can do it, I can do it.' But I think that's the single hardest thing. Giving up his daughter is hard, giving up his magic is hard, but giving up his revenge, that's the hardest thing.
JAMES EVANS:
Now, you've played Prospero a number of times over your career. Do you find that you approach it in a different way each time you play it? Or do you find something new in the character each time?
JOHN BELL:
I think you find something interesting and new just by getting older, you know? I'm too old now for Prospero. I'm 74. Prospero should be about 44. If you work it out chronologically, he should be a younger man. Um, you've got to be an old man before you can appreciate that. So... I think, um, you know... I don't think the part has all that many options. He can either be more or less benevolent, more or less punitive, but the outline of the character stays pretty constant. What you can do is find more and more about yourself in the role, I think. And until you are older, you can't appreciate what it means to give up your child, to give up power, to give up resentment. But by doing this part, you realise what a great freedom that is. And he becomes free by giving up all of that stuff.
JAMES EVANS:
Mm. Now, there is a theory that, in fact, the voice of Prospero is the voice of Shakespeare himself - coming to the end of his career, hanging up his quill. What do you make of that theory?
JOHN BELL:
Look, it's very convenient, a bit sentimental. Uh, but there could be an inkling of truth in it. After all, he was coming towards the end of his career. He was in his late 40s when he wrote this. And there is a feeling he'd said all he wanted to say, somehow. A lot of artists reach that position where they've... made their big statements. After King Lear, what is there left to say, you know? Um, so maybe he was thinking, 'OK, it's about time to give it all up.' And so there could be an inkling of it in that last speech, but, then again, Prospero is nothing like Shakespeare. Prospero is a dreamer. Shakespeare was a very practical man. Very pragmatic, he was very good with money, he was very good in buying property, good businessman... He wasn't a dreamer. He didn't footle around. So he's nothing like Prospero in that way. And he's nothing like Prospero in the fact that, uh... Prospero is such a controller. Because Shakespeare, I think, is all about freedom. His theatre is free, uh... free of clutter, free of, you know, of props and all that sort of stuff. It's about an empty space and actors using words. So I think you'll find a lot about freedom in all his work. And he wasn't as constricted a person as Prospero obviously is.