"An actor can do Hamlet right through to Lear, men of every age and every step of spiritual development. Where's the equivalent for women? I don't fancy hanging around to play Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Life's too short."
"If I'm too strong for some people, that's their problem."
Costume worn by Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth I in BBC’s ‘Elizabeth R’ (1972), designed by Elizabeth Waller and made by Jean Hunnisett. Recreated from Elizabeth’s ‘The Phoenix’ portrait.
"The Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Michiel, went further still,describing her as as ‘the illegitimate child of a criminal who was punished as a public strumpet’."
IIRC, Mary says those exact words in the first episode of Elizabeth R 👌
Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I in the television mini-series “Elizabeth R” in 1971. The performance brought her an Emmy Award. Credit...Avalon, via Getty Images
By the wonderful David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London. I miss the days when not just the costuming but the music for historical dramas was *right* too. Even the theme music. Here, David Munrow has based the opening theme for 'Elizabeth R' closely on William Byrd's setting of Browning à 5 (listen to 0:20 to 0:33 of this theme, then to 1:38 to 1:50 of the Byrd below). Munrow's choice to make his own setting of Browning for the theme of 'Elizabeth R' surely nods towards a version of the song going around in Elizabeth's day with the lyrics, "The leaves be green, the leaves be green / God save Elizabeth our Queen".