The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #14 ｜ A Man For All Seasons with Beau Dade Part 1

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome back to this episode of Chronicles, where today we're going to be

00:00:18.500 talking all about A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, a play written in 1960 about the martyrdom

00:00:27.540 of Sir Thomas More back during the Tudor period. So if we're going to be talking history, what better

00:00:33.360 thing to do than bring in the history bro himself. How are you, sir? I'm fine, thank you. Thanks for

00:00:39.220 having me. I love talking about the age of Henry. Yeah. I love talking about Thomas More, Thomas

00:00:43.720 Cromwell, Wolsey, the whole lot. Right. And it covers it, doesn't it? It's a great little bit of

00:00:49.060 time. It is. The rise and more importantly, the fall of Thomas More, St. Thomas More. Yeah, if you're

00:00:55.980 of that fate. Yeah. And yeah, because we've actually talked about all of this a little bit

00:01:01.560 before, but from a different viewpoint, haven't we? Because, well, you invited me in before I joined

00:01:06.000 full time and we did that epoch on Thomas Cromwell, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. And one of the main way that

00:01:12.240 we framed that discussion was looking at whether or not Cromwell as a man, the historical Cromwell,

00:01:19.400 was more like his Wolf Hall portrayal or his A Man For All Seasons portrayal. Yeah. Right. And so now

00:01:27.140 we're just really going to focus in on this as a play and famously a fantastic film as well. The 1966

00:01:36.200 film starring Paul Schofield, Robert Shaw. Robert Shaw. John Hurt. He steals it. Yeah. Robert

00:01:43.500 Paul Schofield. One scene. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant portrayal. Yeah. Yeah. John Hurt. Yeah. Suzanne

00:01:50.500 the York. Brilliant. Brilliant cast. So yeah. And there's a late 80s Charlton Heston TV. I think

00:01:59.780 it's for TV version, which I only discovered a couple of days ago. Right. I went on YouTube

00:02:04.380 and saw that there was a full Man For All Seasons. Oh. I was like, oh, great. Well, I'll rewatch it

00:02:10.200 then. I mean, I've watched the original Paul Schofield. I had it on VHS growing up, so

00:02:13.700 I must have seen it 15 times. Loads of times. It's a great, great, great, great film. Right.

00:02:19.200 And I saw on YouTube that the whole Man For All Seasons was on there. I was like, oh, okay.

00:02:23.200 Oh, two hours and 20. It's a bit longer than I thought. Put it on. Start watching it.

00:02:27.200 It's like Charlton Heston. Charlton Heston's not in it. And anyway, there's another TV version,

00:02:33.200 which I watched, which is interesting. And you say it was pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's

00:02:38.400 fairly low budget. It's not as good as the 1966 film. It's nowhere near as good, really.

00:02:43.400 But it's definitely still good and it's still worth watching. The guy they got to play Henry

00:02:48.400 is no Robert Shaw. No. But no, it's worth watching. It's a bit longer than the film, the 60s film.

00:02:57.400 But yeah, anyway, that exists, which I didn't know until just a couple of days ago.

00:03:01.400 There you are. If you want to watch that on YouTube, you can. And also just to say as well, from what Bo tells me of it,

00:03:07.400 because I've not seen that, it sounds to me like that version is a more faithful adaptation of the version

00:03:14.400 that was made for theatre, that was written for theatre originally in this 1960 version.

00:03:19.400 The way that it sounds like the common man speaks directly to the audience.

00:03:23.400 The fact that it's got Chapuis in it, the ambassador who's absent from the 66 film.

00:03:30.400 Yeah. So, yeah. It seems like the 66 film is abridged. Yes. A bit.

00:03:35.400 It's good, though. I like the leanness. Yeah. It's very...

00:03:39.400 It's tight. Yeah, it's tight. It's slick on wheels. Yeah. So let's just...

00:03:45.400 Before we talk about the play, as always, let's just talk a bit about Robert Bolt himself.

00:03:50.400 I don't know anything about himself. Should be learning here.

00:03:52.400 Yeah. Okay. So interesting. He was born in Sale in Manchester in 1924.

00:04:01.400 That's unfortunate. You're right. Right. Yeah. What a time and place to be dropped in.

00:04:07.400 And that's where you're getting your starting life. So his dad was a furniture dealer.

00:04:13.400 Right. So very, very ordinary background. Very old. He used to some Manchester grammar school and went on to work in an insurance company.

00:04:23.400 And then the war broke out. And then he was in... And unlike what we did with the master and commander...

00:04:30.400 I'm not whiplashing you with this. None of this is lies. This is all true.

00:04:34.400 And then the... Yeah. World War II. He was in the... He tried for the Air Force, but he was...

00:04:42.400 Got sickness. Like, he just couldn't take it from the flying. So he never got past that.

00:04:48.400 And then he went on to be in the... It was called the Royal West Africa Frontier Force.

00:04:55.400 Okay. Which I don't know any great details about his time there doing it, but that's who he was with for the duration of World War II.

00:05:06.400 Another interesting, and I'd be remiss not to mention it, part of his life during those years was that in 1942, he joined the Communist Party of Britain.

00:05:17.400 Right? So, oof. It's not... It's not great. It's not great. I will say that he later repented.

00:05:25.400 Oh. All right. And saw the error of his ways and realised that, hang on, this isn't really about freedom at all.

00:05:31.400 And yeah, he became quite a critic of it. Oh, well, fair enough.

00:05:36.400 But yeah, that was, you know, in his days of youth when he was idealistic and wrong.

00:05:41.400 I had a post of Che Guevara on my bedroom wall when I was like 15.

00:05:45.400 I can't even imagine that.

00:05:47.400 What a cliché as well. I can't even imagine.

00:05:49.400 What a ridiculous cliché. Yeah. 0.98

00:05:51.400 But yeah, anyway. You see, I never had that. I was just like voting UKIP from 18 as soon as I could...

00:05:58.400 Well, to be fair, to excuse myself, I didn't know anything really about Che Guevara. It was like...

00:06:03.400 Yeah. 0.99

00:06:04.400 It was just like when you're 15, you don't know shit, really. Sure. 0.98

00:06:07.400 It's like having a Ban the Bomb poster. It was just a cool clichéd poster to have. I didn't know anything about his life or his politics.

00:06:17.400 Sure. Yeah.

00:06:18.400 But there you go.

00:06:19.400 We pardon you.

00:06:21.400 Many people when they're young are lefty.

00:06:24.400 Yeah.

00:06:25.400 Yeah.

00:06:26.400 Yeah.

00:06:27.400 Yeah.

00:06:28.400 Even Peter Hitchens.

00:06:29.400 And so you have this...

00:06:31.400 But then what's remarkable as well is that other than A Man For All Seasons, which is by far and away his most famous play, he also, of course, wrote the screenplay for David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia.

00:06:44.400 Oh, right.

00:06:45.400 Yeah.

00:06:46.400 That was him. He wrote the screenplay for that.

00:06:47.400 That's right.

00:06:48.400 Yeah.

00:06:49.400 He also wrote the screenplay for David Lean's Dr. Zhivago.

00:06:51.400 Okay.

00:06:52.400 Didn't know that.

00:06:53.400 And then a few decades later, he wrote the screenplay for The Bounty with Anthony Hopkins.

00:06:58.400 Oh, really?

00:06:59.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:00.400 I didn't know that either.

00:07:01.400 Did he do the screenplay for the 66 film?

00:07:03.400 Because he definitely did it for the 88 Charlton Heston one.

00:07:07.400 Yes.

00:07:08.400 Okay.

00:07:09.400 Yes, he amended it and went back and remodelled it.

00:07:12.400 He won an Oscar, in fact, for best adapted screenplay.

00:07:15.400 He did, didn't he?

00:07:16.400 Yeah.

00:07:17.400 Yeah.

00:07:18.400 So, yeah.

00:07:19.400 Remarkable talent.

00:07:20.400 Genuinely an incredible writer.

00:07:21.400 And that's obviously something that we'll talk about more as it goes on, how well he seems to be able to just realise these characters.

00:07:29.400 But also, one of the things as well, because I just take an example off the top of my head, Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

00:07:38.400 I really detest that film because they don't feel like they're living in the 12th century.

00:07:47.400 They feel too modern to be living in there.

00:07:49.400 They say things that you just don't believe someone in the late 1100s would say.

00:07:55.400 Whereas with this, I don't feel like there's really any anachronisms.

00:07:59.400 They feel really authentic, I think, to the time that they're living in.

00:08:04.400 So, no, it's brilliantly written.

00:08:06.400 There's just no doubt about that.

00:08:08.400 Right.

00:08:09.400 It's whatever that magic is, which makes you suspend your disbelief and you believe the characters.

00:08:19.400 You believe the scene that they're in.

00:08:23.400 Whatever that magic is, he's got it.

00:08:25.400 There's a reason why we're talking about this because it is so good.

00:08:32.400 Yeah.

00:08:33.400 So, I suppose before we start the play as well, just why has he written the play about Sir Thomas More?

00:08:40.400 Like why?

00:08:41.400 And it seems that actually more was a person who fascinated him from quite a young age.

00:08:48.400 He seems to have been quite fascinated from more since his teenage years by his stand, his principle, his, his conscience.

00:08:58.400 And all of the things that he obviously presents as being just and remarkable testaments to More's character within this play.

00:09:07.400 And so it's clear that this is something of a passion project for him.

00:09:10.400 And he's been wanting to tell more story for quite a long time.

00:09:15.400 And I had an interesting quote from Bolt here where he said, I'm not a Catholic, nor am I even in the meaningful sense of the word a Christian.

00:09:25.400 So, by what right do I appropriate a Christian saint to my purposes?

00:09:30.400 Or to put it another way, why do I take as my hero a man who brings about his own death because he can't put his hand on an old black book and tell an ordinary lie?

00:09:41.400 For this reason, a man takes an oath only when he wants to commit himself quite exceptionally to the statement.

00:09:49.400 When he wants to make an identity between the truth of it and his own virtue, he offers himself as a guarantee and it works.

00:09:58.400 Hmm. Very good. Yeah.

00:10:01.400 Very, very interesting to me because it's funny, I've never heard that quote before, but I feel exactly the same.

00:10:07.400 Hmm. I'm not a Catholic and by no meaningful sense of Christian, though raised in the Christian milieu.

00:10:14.400 Yeah.

00:10:15.400 And yet I deeply admire Thomas More.

00:10:18.400 Me too.

00:10:19.400 The story of Thomas More's downfall, certainly, and the story of The Man Full Seasons is really a story of a man drawing a line in the sand.

00:10:27.400 That's what it is. Unto death.

00:10:30.400 Yes.

00:10:31.400 And that's admirable. Yeah. To me, that's admirable.

00:10:36.400 I even wrote an article for Lotus Eaters, find it on the website, all about this.

00:10:42.400 And they got a little bit of flack from some Catholics, but they obviously didn't read it or didn't understand what I was saying or something, even though it's pretty straightforward.

00:10:52.400 They thought I was besmirching Catholicism in some way. It wasn't at all. Anyway. Anyway. Point is, is that, yeah, you don't really necessarily have to be Catholic to admire St. Thomas More.

00:11:07.400 Uh, it's, it's really the story of someone that's got, uh, as I say, a line in the sand. There's, there's a, a, a line which they will not be forced to cross.

00:11:19.400 Um, and that they've got, there's a number of ways to putting it, isn't there, but they've just got, um, their own sense of right and wrong.

00:11:27.400 And, uh, beyond a certain point, uh, will not be coerced, will not be forced to do something or say something against their will.

00:11:36.400 When all the powers in the kingdom.

00:11:38.400 The whole world is against you. Yeah.

00:11:40.400 And, and your life is on line, not just your liberty, but your very life depends on it.

00:11:46.400 I mean, we know he got his head cut off, but he could have been burnt.

00:11:49.400 Yeah. 0.84

00:11:50.400 Which is much worse, much, much worse. Oh yes.

00:11:52.400 Fate. Um, so to have all that on the line and just in and of yourself, you say, no, you say, no, here is where I stand like Luther.

00:12:02.400 Hmm. Here I stand. I can do no other, uh, let, let the heavens fall, do what you will to me.

00:12:10.400 But this is my line in the sand. I think that's absolutely admirable.

00:12:13.400 I, I, I entirely agree with you. And, um, though I don't want to make too many, uh, allusions to our own times, you know,

00:12:21.400 it is remarkable now when you just think of the fact that Thomas more just lost his life because he refused to take an oath.

00:12:30.400 And now here, you know, you have the King taking a coronation oath and just not really fulfilling it.

00:12:37.400 You have an MP in parliament who will, you know, you're supposed to swear allegiance to the King.

00:12:42.400 And you have, um, something like, uh, like Clive Lewis, you know, where he had that thing.

00:12:48.400 I know, but I'm just making the point that it's like,

00:12:51.400 No, it's a great point. No, I'm wincing it till I've been such a scumbag. 0.99

00:12:54.400 Well, wince away. But, um, the, the point is, right, it's like, oh, I'm not saying it properly. 0.97

00:13:00.400 It's like, then you just have to retake it again. So the maiden retake it and he just did it.

00:13:05.400 It's like, yeah, but the point is right. We know you're just lying. There's no force behind it.

00:13:10.400 There's no consequence for you. If you break this oath, there's no grander repercussion, no cosmic justice, you know?

00:13:19.400 And so it's like, we've actually entered, we still have the concept of the oath, but it's form without force, right?

00:13:28.400 It's hollow. It's just an age of hollow oaths now.

00:13:32.400 A man that's got a conscience. It really means it. It really means it.

00:13:38.400 Almost like there's nothing else of importance other than your word.

00:13:42.400 What else is there other than the integrity of your word?

00:13:46.400 Yes. Right, right.

00:13:49.400 It's interesting, just a brief aside. I was reading a bit and watching a bit about Enoch Powell recently.

00:13:54.400 And there's one point in the early seventies when he refused to stand for the Conservatives anymore

00:13:59.400 because everyone knew his thoughts and feelings were diametrically opposed to the government. 0.97

00:14:04.400 And so he felt he could not stand because he would be a hypocrite and everyone would know it. 0.98

00:14:09.400 Yeah. 0.95

00:14:10.400 He did an interview with William Buckley, Bill Buckley.

00:14:13.400 And he said, Bill Buckley said, couldn't you just for the whole campaign season of three weeks leading up to the general election,

00:14:20.400 why couldn't you just sort of go on holiday to South America or something so that you, 0.75

00:14:25.400 so that you were never asked these questions so that you were just physically never had to say contradictory, hypocritical things. 0.76

00:14:33.400 And Enoch Powell said, no, no, that's no good. That's just ridiculous, absurd cowardice. No, no, no, that's not good enough. 0.99

00:14:40.400 Absolutely.

00:14:41.400 Again, the same, the same sort of principle. No, I'll stand, I'll stand on my principles.

00:14:46.400 Hmm.

00:14:47.400 And, uh, and, and again, I can do no other.

00:14:49.400 Yes.

00:14:50.400 Um, and, and it's what separates more as a person from the other people of his age.

00:14:56.400 Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:57.400 So let's start talking about the play itself.

00:15:00.400 Yeah.

00:15:01.400 So one thing to mention is that, uh, differences with the 66 film and this is that the film is, of course, being a piece of cinema, uh, is all acted much more naturalistically, right?

00:15:15.400 It's all about just immersion in the time period, in the characters, in Moore's struggle, the emotional toll that's taking on him, the sacrifices that he's making, how it affects his family, all these sorts of things.

00:15:28.400 And that is absolutely there in the play itself.

00:15:32.400 However, the play has, because it leans more into the, uh, common man character who works as a framing device, you have this, uh, Matthew.

00:15:45.400 Yeah.

00:15:46.400 Matthew.

00:15:47.400 Well, he's Matthew when he is, uh, more steward.

00:15:50.400 And then at other times that actor will play the boat man or the jailer or whatever it may be.

00:15:56.400 So he, he hops about and, you know, he just plays all of the characters that the lower orders would have had back then.

00:16:04.400 So he's, I mean, Bolt talks about in the preface to this, how that character came to be mistaken for just sort of representing the man on the street.

00:16:15.400 Hmm.

00:16:16.400 When really what Bolt was trying to communicate was there was something about that character that is supposed to represent something common about all of humanity.

00:16:26.400 Just the questions that he asks about things that get things he gets you to think about.

00:16:30.400 And because at the time when Bolt was writing this play in about 1960, you are having, uh, there was quite a burst of creativity in England, English theater because of, uh,

00:16:44.400 a German playwright known as, uh, Bertolt Brecht, who you may or may not be familiar with.

00:16:50.400 Yeah.

00:16:51.400 And he had, um, this, um, theatrical, uh, device known as, what's it called?

00:16:56.400 Um, uh, alienation.

00:16:59.400 And so rather than you be like a film immersed in the action, you rather were to be constantly reminded that this is a play.

00:17:07.400 And it was, I mean, this is a more tepid form of it, but it's about asking you questions and then getting you to think critically all the time about the things that you're being presented with.

00:17:19.400 All right.

00:17:20.400 As opposed to just getting sort of whipped away in the struggles of one man.

00:17:25.400 Yeah.

00:17:26.400 But, um, to that extent, I don't think the play, I don't think it makes it a better play in any way.

00:17:34.400 Like it's, but it's just something I thought was worth mentioning, uh, for people at home to give them, uh, just a full picture of something that's in the play.

00:17:43.400 It reminds me of, uh, the, the chorus you might get in an older play or an ancient play.

00:17:49.400 Sure.

00:17:50.400 Um, or even in Shakespeare, I think of Henry V.

00:17:53.400 Henry V has a chorus in it where, you know, it's a, it's, it's, uh, it's very much, uh, making you aware that you're watching a play.

00:18:02.400 It's like, come and join me.

00:18:03.400 Use your imagination to pretend like literally saying this.

00:18:06.400 Right.

00:18:07.400 Imagine this stage is, is the vasty fields of France.

00:18:10.400 Imagine that there's a thousand horses behind me and stuff like that.

00:18:13.400 Okay.

00:18:14.400 I'm there.

00:18:15.400 Yeah.

00:18:16.400 I'm there.

00:18:17.400 Yeah.

00:18:18.400 So there's that, that Matthew character or that, that every man sort of character acts as a sort of a chorus.

00:18:21.400 Sure.

00:18:22.400 Um, uh, uh, uh, opening a lot of the scenes, um, or the very beginning of the play saying, just saying, oh, look, here comes Thomas Moore.

00:18:32.400 Oh, look, here comes the Duke of Norfolk.

00:18:34.400 Yeah.

00:18:35.400 Oh, look, that's Thomas Moore's wife.

00:18:36.400 Yeah.

00:18:37.400 Quite literally saying, you know, so, um, uh, yeah.

00:18:40.400 It takes you out of it a bit.

00:18:41.400 Yeah.

00:18:42.400 Like that's not done in modern films at all.

00:18:44.400 No.

00:18:45.400 But it is a play.

00:18:46.400 And so, um, you can get away with different things.

00:18:49.400 Yeah.

00:18:50.400 Right.

00:18:51.400 Yeah.

00:18:52.400 So the first scene we get, uh, we're introduced to Thomas Moore, uh, in his own with his family.

00:18:57.400 Right.

00:18:58.400 So you have Thomas, you have his wife, Alice.

00:19:01.400 And though he had many children, uh, the play just focuses on his daughter, Margaret.

00:19:06.400 Yeah.

00:19:07.400 His favorite.

00:19:08.400 Yeah.

00:19:09.400 And the play does a really good job of showing that.

00:19:11.400 Uh, well, I suppose it does.

00:19:13.400 Like if she's the only child in the play, then that is sort of a favorite, I suppose.

00:19:18.400 Yeah.

00:19:19.400 Uh, not much compared to, but yeah, but she's, and it's fantastic because Alice is a very straightforward

00:19:27.400 woman.

00:19:28.400 She's not educated.

00:19:29.400 She can't read.

00:19:30.400 She can't write.

00:19:31.400 Yeah.

00:19:32.400 Uh, and in fact, she, she scoffs at the idea of learning. 0.51

00:19:35.400 She's asked, do you want me to teach you?

00:19:37.400 No.

00:19:38.400 You know, whereas Meg is incredibly academic and you can tell that, uh, Moore is bringing

00:19:44.400 her up to be a very, very educated woman. 1.00

00:19:47.400 And also you have the Duke of Norfolk, one of the most powerful, uh, nobleman in the realm.

00:19:56.400 And you also have the character of Richard rich.

00:19:59.400 Hmm.

00:20:00.400 So you're immediately introduced to a whole series of characters and they all have their

00:20:06.400 own particular color to them.

00:20:08.400 They're all.

00:20:09.400 And one of the things in particular, I love the Duke of Norfolk because everything that

00:20:13.400 he says, he just owns a room, right?

00:20:15.400 You know, you, because he has that nobility about him, the conversation is what the Duke

00:20:20.400 of Norfolk wants to talk about.

00:20:22.400 The Duke of Norfolk goes where the Duke of Norfolk wants to go.

00:20:25.400 And when you compare that with the character immediately, like Richard, who is very meek

00:20:32.400 and, oh, I read this thing in Aristotle.

00:20:35.400 And then he just trails off, you know, he's just constantly trailing off.

00:20:38.400 He's not, he's not sure in his own sense of self.

00:20:42.400 Hmm.

00:20:43.400 Hmm.

00:20:44.400 And this idea of your own sense of self is something that the play constantly refers

00:20:50.400 back to.

00:20:51.400 Hmm.

00:20:52.400 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters, head to our website

00:20:55.400 where you can find more.

00:20:56.400 Hmm.

00:20:57.400 Hmm.

00:20:58.400 Hmm.

00:20:59.400 Hmm.

00:21:00.400 Hmm.

00:21:01.400 Hmm.

00:21:02.400 Hmm.

00:21:03.400 Hmm.

00:21:04.400 Hmm.

00:21:05.400 Hmm.

00:21:06.400 Hmm.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - September 13, 2025

PREVIEW： Chronicles #14 ｜ A Man For All Seasons with Beau Dade Part 1

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