Sir John Gielgud started a one-man show in England in 1957, and took it to America in 1966, where it was recorded and broadcast on CBS television. “Ages of Man” is a sampler of William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets exploring the journey of life from birth to death.
Director Paul Bogart no doubt exerted minimal effort here, letting “Gielgud be Gielgud” in his masterful interpretation of the Bard’s work. This was an anthology compiled by Oxford professor George Rylands in 1939. Producer David Susskind won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Dramatic Program – Single Program.
The show was divided into three parts: Youth, manhood, and old age, with excerpts from “The Merchant of Venice,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “As You Like It,” “Richard III,” and “Hamlet.” among others. Sir John Gielgud summed things up at the end of “Ages of Man:” “And like this substantial pageant faded…We are such stuff as dreams are made of.”
Ages of Man (1966)
cinema
My Review
Sir John Gielgud started a one-man show in England in 1957, and took it to America in 1966, where it was recorded and broadcast on CBS television. “Ages of Man” is a sampler of William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets exploring the journey of life from birth to death.
Director Paul Bogart no doubt exerted minimal effort here, letting “Gielgud be Gielgud” in his masterful interpretation of the Bard’s work. This was an anthology compiled by Oxford professor George Rylands in 1939. Producer David Susskind won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Dramatic Program – Single Program.
The show was divided into three parts: Youth, manhood, and old age, with excerpts from “The Merchant of Venice,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “As You Like It,” “Richard III,” and “Hamlet.” among others. Sir John Gielgud summed things up at the end of “Ages of Man:” “And like this substantial pageant faded…We are such stuff as dreams are made of.”