INPUT / … / … / Dangerous classics

Classics can be dangerous for television. How do you present the artistic heritage of the past? When you change the text or the context are you guilty of subversion? What is our responsibility to the original work? Do the ends justify the means? HAMLET is a lyrical, violent and strikingly modern Swedish presentation containing all of the scenes that Shakespeare wrote but only 40 per cent of the text. HONOUR, PROFIT AND PELASURE, a witty and irreverent biography of the composer Geroge Friedrich Haendel avoids the usual stuffed-shirt approach to classical music figures. Dylan Thomas’ short story “The visitor” has been transformed into the Yugoslavian RIANON, a surrealistic vision of the last 24 hours of the poet’s life. THE GOESPEL AT COLONUS is Sophocles’ Oedipus story as it’s never been told before: a gospel opera that’s an innovative blending of Greek tragedy with the rousing musical energy of the black church. Television transforms the stage performance into a small-screen-opera.