The Man of Destiny

Produced at a time (1981) when the BBC were committed to its public service remit of educating and informing as well as entertaining, Desmond Davis's PLAY OF THE MONTH production offers a trenchant rendering of Shaw's minor classic.

First produced in 1897, THE MAN OF DESTINY is a fantasy based on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Simon Callow). At the height of his despotic power, he believes that he can carry all before him, and invariably does so, exerting his authority over a clueless lieutenant (David Troughton) and an apparently servile innkeeper (Niall Toibin). However Napoleon meets his match when he encounters an unidentified Lady (Delphine Seyrig) who previously has disguised herself as a man in order to obtain some letters off the lieutenant.

The plot - if it can be called so - centers around a packet of letters that Napoleon wants to obtain off the Lady, and thus prepared to stoop to any levels to obtain them. What Shaw is more concerned with is the verbal battle between the two of them, as they try every single strategy they know to outwit one another. Although believing himself to be the eponymous "man of destiny," Napoleon appears to have met his match with the Lady.

The script fairly crackles with witticisms, culminating in a long diatribe against the English, which might be construed as the Irishman Shaw's revenge against the colonizer, but which has the distinct whiff of a rhetorical flourish, the kind of portentous dialogue that he was fond of deflating.

The action takes place in one set, and is largely continuous, with the focus of attention on the characters' expressions. This is an intimate form of television, requiring great concentration on the actors' part, especially when Davis's camera tracks their movements away from and towards one another. Callow and Seyrig are especially memorable; Callow full of bluster contrasting with Seyrig's calm rationality. Troughton turns in a memorable cameo as the hapless lieutenant.

THE MAN OF DESTINY demands our attention, as we listen to the dialogue and try to make sense of it. Nonetheless the production remains a highly rewarding one.

This hour-long film, first presented upon the BBC network in September 1986, is an absorbing interpretation of George Bernard Shaw's initial historical drama, subtitled by its author "a fictitious paragraph of history", a work that had its premiere stage performance in 1897. It is shot with videotape and is unfortunately mangled by substandard sound recording. The narrative is set during the second day following Napoleon Bonaparte's triumph over an Austrian army in the Battle of Lodi (1796) and its location is within a small hostelry at Tavazzano, between Lodi and Milan where the young general, played by Simon Callow, is awaiting delivery of dispatches wherein which he will find details of his next combat assignment, one designed to liberate Italy from its royal leadership, therewith advancing European principles of Republicanism. The dispatch rider, a young lieutenant (David Troughton), tardily arrives and reveals that he was gulled out of the dispatch papers by an uncommonly charming youth. At this time, the two soldiers are made aware of a "mysterious" woman who has just arrived at the inn, and depicted by the innkeeper Niall Toibin as being very tantalizing. Soon she enters the room and during a lengthy duologue denounces Bonaparte's burning ambition with daring questions designed to avoid his validated suspicions that she may be the swindling "young man" who hoodwinked the gullible lieutenant. Here begins a typically structured Shavian play, its comedy weighty and short of laughter and sympathy producing episodes. Its action is restricted to a single room, actuated by superlative use of irony within dialogue that eventually is contracted to only that between Napoleon and the unnamed woman (Delphine Seyrig), a dangerous opponent for him, as she calls into question Bonaparte's code of honour while he evidences his desire to retrieve the purloined dispatches from her. The lady avers that she will gladly restore them, with an exception of a single "love letter", concerning which both the author and recipient are known only to her. The verbal sparring between the two has been generally tallied as a victory for the woman; however, a close reading of the text, and a careful viewing of this performance, will reveal to some that Bonaparte is the rightful winner with the woman's guerdon following their meeting being somewhat ephemeral. Shaw's customary sensibilities bear fruit in the final pages through Napoleon's rants describing England's comprehensive inferiority to France ("A Nation of shopkeepers" - often and incorrectly ascribed to Bonaparte), ("The English are a stupid people", etc.), and other Shavian accorded flaws of the British Empire. Nonetheless, it shall be acknowledged that the playwright's utilization of original source documents as background for his work is manifest, and referential throughout the play. The diminutive Callow is felicitously cast as Bonaparte, and gains the acting laurels while the performances turned in by the other three players are uniformly excellent. Director Desmond Davis has a merited reputation for his supervision of trenchant dialogue, as is the case here, despite aberrant sound editing that causes the readings of the actors to ebb into inaudibility whenever their backs are turned to the camera (as on the boards). Nonetheless, this is an estimable cinema production of a too seldom produced play.

I have to be honest that I never heard of this play by George Bernard Shaw. For only an hour, Simon Callow and Belgian actress Delphine Seyring argue and debate about life and war. The drama can be lackluster in action. Seyring's Lady isn't given a name. Shaw wrote about politics, social classes and wars abroad. It's worth watching but it's very spoken.