Recovered Classic: In The Bleak Midwinter


Kenneth Branagh was left licking his wounds in 1994 after the critical savaging dished out to his dire Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But he bounced back a year later with this sparkling low budget comedy, a movie which saw him stay firmly behind the camera.
Turning his back on the excesses of Hollywood and going very much back to his roots, Branagh crafted something of a shoestring-budgeted gem, a quirky comedy about a rag-tag troupe of no-hope actors who stage a holiday production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in an old church which is as run-down as they are.
Shot in grainy black and white, Branagh’s ensemble comedy centres on the efforts of an out-of-work actor (Michael Maloney) to salvage his pride and nose-diving career by mounting a production of the Bard’s play in which he will take the leading role. Assembling a bunch of eccentrics and misfits (six of them will play all 24 roles), they head off to a remote country church where they will eat, sleep, rehearse (and annoy the hell out of each other) for the next three weeks before the grand opening night on Christmas Eve.
There follows an inevitable catalogue of dramas, crises, creative differences and life-enhancing experiences, all of which have the not wholly unexpected effect of actually building a sense of camaraderie. After all, the show must go on.
Blessed with a magnificent script (also penned by Branagh) and rife with priceless dialogue, it’s Maloney who proves to be the central focus for the imminent production’s anxieties, but his fellow cast members provide all the dramatic sub-plots, particularly Julia Sawalha’s emotional problems, John Sessions’ family troubles and Gerard Horan’s taste for the demon drink. Branagh, however, never lets their character arcs interfere with the main thrust of the story, cleverly turning the focus of attention on each individual without diverting from the efforts to stage the play. In Richard Briers, he also had at his disposal a seasoned comic actor who provides many of the film’s funniest moments, particularly when he learns that he has to share a room with Session’s drag queen.
But it’s not just Briers’ frustration at remembering the good old days, Sawalha’s hopeless eyesight or Sessions’ over-the-top campness that steals all the laughs. Because Branagh’s seen it all before, having toured with his own troupe of Shakespeareans, so he knows a thing or two about inflated egos, behind-the-scenes bitching, petty jealousies and personal conflict, and the film brings all of them hilariously to life. Does that mean the opening reel’s riotous audition scene was based more on fact than fiction?
His first film as a director in which he doesn’t also act, Branagh—who got his ensemble to work impressively well together—says he shot it in black and white because “the rather nostalgic view of the theatre that this piece offers just felt right in black and white, like an Ealing comedy,” and you can’t deny that the film’s visual impact is heightened as a result. It by no means has universal appeal and the prospect of a Hollywood role in a sci-fi trilogy for one actor introduces a bizarre twist to such a down-to-earth tale. But In the Bleak Midwinter is nevertheless a delightfully comic and wonderfully observed low budget triumph which even manages to overcome the appearance of Joan Collins as an agent.

David Lichtneker

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