“The Sixteenth Century is the Century of the Common Man. Like all centuries.”
So says the figure of the Common Man at the start of A Man For All Seasons. This is a comment which, for the Director, goes right to the heart of Robert Bolt’s grand tragedy. Whilst on the one hand it is a historical drama, a fictionalised account of the real people and real politics that defined the English Reformation, on another level it is a timeless and eternal meditation on how any person – in any era – must deal with conflicting loyalties and duties, not least their duty and loyalty to their own conscience.
David Varley