Henry IV Part I Part II

Running time about three hours, a length accounted for in part by the slow delivery of most of the big speeches - slow enough that I could follow most of them. A sensible concession to both the modern and the older ear. The three hours only seemed long in that Act II, the one before the interval, seemed a bit too long on both occasions.

Something of a one-man band with Falstaff (Antony Sher) in a fat suit being allowed to dominate the proceedings. We lost the sense that Falstaff, while providing fun and games, was a parasite, and the age-old tension between the entertaining parasites, the lovable rogues and the solemn productives was lost by default of the productives. But I rather liked Falstaff's slightly public school accents and manners; they struck the right note for me. Posh boy gone to bad.

Good attempt by Percy to redress the balance, an actor with power and presence, but spoilt by irritating mannerisms (mainly physical rather than verbal) which made him into a petulant adolescent rather than the first soldier, albeit a young one, of his time. Perhaps a case of weak direction.

Prince Henry competent. But he seemed to me to be a too straightforward sort of a person to execute the rather self conscious volte-face of the second half. Not all of his big speeches convinced. But there were good bits, for example when he was explaining how he had learned skink-speak (Act II, Scene IV).

King Henry started weak on the first occasion, little trace of him having been the Percy of his day, but he got better on the second occasion, with a strong finish.

Staging generally good, with the first exception of too much being made of the fights, which I found a bit tiresome. But which led me this morning, on waking, to ponder on what sort of fields battlefields actually were. Presumably not like the recreation fields we use for sporting battles now. On the other hand, battle was something of a sport and both sides did want a battle, a trial by ordeal, to settle the quarrel, whatever that may have been. There may have been a sense in which both sides, jointly, sought out a place where that might conveniently be done. Large scale manoeuvring in the eighteenth century sense did exist, but it was not so important in the fifteenth century. Perhaps not much more than trying to fight from the better end, a bit like winning the toss at a cricket match.

The second exception was that I did not care for most of the recorded sound track. The Globe do better here, with their period musicians with their period instruments.

I was in two minds about the small pram used by Falstaff for his travelling gear, notably a carboy for his sack. I thought it silly first time around, funny the second. The illustration above was the best that google could offer, not quite the carboy used on the stage, but it is the right colour and it does give the idea. £150 or so from https://www.etsy.com/market/carboy, noted purveyors of ornaments for the better sort of house in Islington. I wasn't able to find the supplier of laboratory glassware I was looking for.

Turning to some other details, there was a slight echo during the opening speech from Henry IV. The lady on my left on the second occasion noticed this too but thought that it was a feature rather than a bug. I disagree.

Percy's lady changed gear from demure and dignified wife in her opening scene to something rather coarser in the farewell scene (Act III, Scene I). In which scene Glendower's daughter, Lady Mortimer, does not have a good enough singing voice for what was expected of her.

Her lord, Lord Mortimer, was made into a rather smarmy saloon bar type, not exactly the marcher lord he was. The Barbican here replicating the Globe in being unable to muster enough actors who can convince as medieval lords.

Glendower was made into a figure of fun, and Douglas, while not a figure of fun, was a music hall wild man of the north. While both were serious fighting men, albeit robbers rather than kings, who would have had respect in their own time, and would have been better for a bit of respect in ours.

Poins quite good. A tricky part to my mind, reflecting the difficulty of being boon-companion to a prince while remaining a person in one's own right.

Vernon a bit feeble. To fat for a fighter.

Overall a good show which I was glad to have seen twice. The play came through, despite the various faults in the playing, enumerated, or at least sampled, above.

PS: reminded, on both occasions, of the parable of the prodigal son.

Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/henry-iv-part-i-part-i.html.