For a pair of plays often described as Shakespeare’s single greatest achievement, the Henry IV dramas certainly require a decent grounding in history. Forming part of the so-called ‘royal cycle’, they balance the high drama of the various attempts to overthrow the perceived usurper Henry Bolingbroke with the familial conflict he experiences with his wastrel son, Prince Hal, who in turn is over-familiar with the dissolute knight Sir John Falstaff, a massive, rubicund presence who has deservedly become one of the most famous characters in drama. The challenge for Gregory Doran in his new RSC production of the plays is to balance near-tragic scope with low tavern comedy, and not to make them feel like an odd assortment of miscellaneous scenes. Has he succeeded?
The answer, largely, is ‘yes’. As with his production of Richard II in 2013, Doran’s staging is an essentially traditional one that uses period dress, atmospheric choral music and well-designed sets by Stephen Brimson Lewis to paint a picture of an England uneasily poised on the edge of revolution and chaos, as exemplified in the first part by the fiery young rebel Hotspur (an unusually menacing and aggressive Trevor White, with bleached blonde hair). Into this tense and destructive world comes the lord of misrule himself, Falstaff, here played both affectionately and with his usual intelligence by Antony Sher. Unlike Simon Russell Beale in the recent BBC adaptation, Sher seems to genuinely like the fat knight, playing him as a rogue and cheerily amoral chancer who nevertheless is partially redeemed by his transparent love for those around him, not least his surrogate son Prince Hal.
Which brings us onto these productions’ greatest weakness, namely the casting of Alex Hassell as Hal. It’s a notoriously tricky part, requiring an actor to be simultaneously a hot-headed sybarite and a carefully calculating king-in-waiting, whose eventual rejection of Falstaff at the end of Part II has to be done with a mixture of regret, anger and resolve. Hassell, who is fine at the comic clowning of Part I and at the physically demanding fighting and rushing, is on much less certain ground when it comes to conveying Hal’s indecision and inner turmoil, meaning that this is a disappointingly two-dimensional presentation of Henry V-to-be as little more than a manic depressive playboy with some serious daddy issues.
These daddy issues are more than elegantly expressed by a typically excellent Jasper Britton, who, at least in the first part, reminds the audience that these plays are entitled Henry IV rather than ‘Falstaff’ or ‘Henry V -1’, offering a combination of strong verse speaking, near-comic delusion in his ongoing desire to mount a new crusade to Jerusalem even while beset by internal discord, and, finally, a moving reconciliation with his son, in scenes made moving and effective even without Hassell conveying the full turmoil of how ‘uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.’ And the supporting cast, as is usual with the RSC, features plenty of excellent character acting, whether it’s Antony Byrne as a variety of characters including a shock-headed Pistol, Joshua Richards as an awesomely Welsh Glendower and a grimly red-faced Bardolph or Paola Dionisotti, who channels Dot Cotton into a touching Mistress Quickly. (Although the running joke about her husband might be lost on most audiences…)
The plays are probably best seen together, to get the full effect of the panoramic world being depicted, and although this does mean six hours in the Barbican, it’s time extremely well spent. Sher’s Falstaff will probably be the single most compelling ingredient for most audiences (hence his prominent positioning in the posters), but the rest of this elegant and superbly acted – Hassell apart – Henriad is an excellent way to round off 2014, or begin 2015.
Henry IV Parts I & II at the Barbican, London, until 24th January. For more information and tickets visit the website.
