Recommended viewing on YouTube: "Monsignor Quixote" (1987) and "The Best of Friends" (1991)

Free post

Whether or not one can call either of these engaging dramas “mystical” in character, you decide. (I really must consider a new name for this Substack page. Any suggestions?) But they are both beautifully made and provide understated but sharp exchanges on the subject of faith and doubt, or religion and non-religion, and — in addition — do so with great wit and charm. Nor could one find two dramas with greater acting talent on display: Sir Alec Guinness, Leo McKern, Dame Wendy Hiller, Sir John Gielgud, and Patrick McGoohan (not to mention Sir Ian Richardson and Graham Crowden).

The first, based on Graham Greene’s 1982 novel, Monsignor Quixote, features the first two actors named above, with Guinness in the titular role (a descendant, of course, of Cervantes’ Don Quixote) and McKern as his modern-day “Sancho.” The Wikipedia page for the novel provides these details of the plot:

Father Quixote, a parish priest in the little town of El Toboso in Spain's La Mancha region, regards himself as a descendant of Cervantes' character of the same name, even if people point out to him that Don Quixote was a fictitious character. One day, he helps and gives food to a mysterious Italian bishop whose car has broken down. Shortly afterwards, he is given the title of Monsignor by the Pope, much to the surprise of his bishop who looks upon Father Quixote's activities rather with suspicion. He urges the priest to take a holiday, and so Quixote embarks upon a voyage through Spain with his old Seat 600 called "Rocinante" and in the company of the Communist ex-mayor of El Toboso (who, of course, is nicknamed "Sancho"). In the subsequent course of events, Quixote and his companion have all sorts of funny and moving adventures along the lines of his ancestor's on their way through post-Franco Spain. They encounter the contemporary equivalents of the windmills, are confronted with holy and not-so-holy places and with sinners of all sorts. In their dialogues about Catholicism and Communism, the two men are brought closer, start to appreciate each other better but also to question their own beliefs…

The drama takes an important (and touching — and rather “mystical”) turn late in their adventures, but I will leave it to you to discover what it is for yourself.

**********

The Wikipedia entry for the 1988 play, The Best of Friends, on which the television production was based describes it with these words:

The Best of Friends is an epistolary play by Hugh Whitemore about the friendship of George Bernard Shaw, Sydney Cockerell and Dame Laurentia McLachlan, based on the lengthy correspondence that passed between them for over 25 years. It was inspired by The Nun, the Infidel, and the Superman, a book by Dame Felicitas Corrigan, a Benedictine nun at Stanbrook Abbey in the U.K.

George Bernard Shaw is considered one of the most important English-language playwrights of the 20th century. Sydney Cockerell was the curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum of the University of Cambridge and was well-connected to many intellectuals of his time. Dame Laurentia was a Benedictine nun and Abbess of Stanbrook from 1931 to 1953 and an authority on church music.

(Dame Laurentia McLachlan, Abbess of Stanbrook Abbey)

With McGoohan in the role of Shaw, Gielgud as Cockerell, and Hiller as the formidable Dame Laurentia, the Benedictine Abbess of Stanbrook Abbey, the interchange is at times humorous, incisive, moving, and elevating. Of the three, I have always been especially interested in the life of Dame Laurentia. Wendy Hiller portrays her with all the inner steel the original possessed. Even confronted by the intimidating wit and unbelief of her friend, Shaw (who was one of G. K. Chesterton’s sparring partners, as well), she never falters or gives an inch. (One can read about Dame Laurentia here.)