Catch up TV

Episode 16 October 2022

Inspired by a childhood memory of an old vinyl recording in the family home, Ralph Fiennes revisited TS Eliot’s Four Quartets during the 2020 lockdown, wondering if it could be given a theatrical treatment rather than merely recited. \n\nTheatre producers James Dacre of the Royal and Derngate theatres, and Danny Moar of the Theatre Royal Bath, got behind Fiennes’s idea. Hildegard Bechtler, Chris Shutt and Tim Lutkin created the set and costume design, sound and stage lighting, with Fiennes directing the production, which toured UK regional theatres and ran at the Pinter Theatre, London, in December 2021.\n\nThis film, directed by Ralph’s sister Sophie, known for her work with Michael Clark, Grace Jones and les ballets C de la B, was made immediately after the live performances. The set and lighting were transported overnight from the West End and re-rigged in English National Ballet’s production studio. The film was shot on 16mm in three days using one camera by director of photography Mike Eley, preserving the colour and atmosphere of Tim Lutkin’s original design for the theatre.\n\nEliot’s ambition was to write a poem that would produce the effect of music on the senses. In this performance, Ralph Fiennes’s delivery brings to life what Eliot called the auditory imagination.

Source: BBC 4