HENRY V. To 20 October.
Manchester
HENRY V
by William Shakespeare.
Royal Exchange Theatre To 20 October 2007.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 29 Sept 2.30pm.
BSL Signed 13 Oct 2.30pm.
Post-show Discussion 11 Oct.
Runs 3hr 10min One interval.
TICKETS: 0161 833 9833.
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 September.
Play about leadership in production that takes account of the led.
Shakespeare stacks the odds against the English at Agincourt: sick, retreating, caught in appalling weather (he doesn’t mention their superior firepower with the easily-reloadable longbow).
As battle looms, the French court’s morale-sapping bitchiness contrasts a Henry who clasps each leader round the shoulders. He talks about all being equal, though the list of the killed will be hierarchical, lower-class dead not even being named.
Jonathan Munby’s modern-dress production embraces the brotherhood from the start, with Gerard Murphy’s Chorus, a medal-wearing war-veteran, persuading us how finer Henry was than can be described. It’s a hard-earned magnificence; Henry’s infested by his father’s guilt, while chaos would come after him.
Munby offers no visible grandeur, nor does Mike Britton’s mesh set where booted soldiers slosh in a water-logged trench, Bardolph hangs and French prisoners’ throats are cut. Even the Chorus, in his other guise as Exeter, takes a careful look to see the king’s not watching before elbowing the captured Southampton traitors in the stomach.
The night before Agincourt is more significant in the play than the battle. The keenest moment here comes when Henry throws off his cloak, announcing himself: “Harry. Leroy,” unbelieving a subject (the common soldier Williams) doesn’t recognise the king.
Yet why should Williams expect to find a disguised king standing by him? It’s a keenly perceptive moment in Munby’s unheroically perceptive account, and Fred Ridgeway plays it magnificently, as spokesman for the proletarian generations. Even his obeisance when he later realises who “Harry Leroy” is, continues the voice of reason and protest.
It defines this production even more than Elliot Cowan’s anxiety, almost compulsively putting a hand to his head or crossing himself, like a nervous actor before going on stage, until the battle’s begun. Though declaring himself an awkward suitor, he frisks comparatively happily when wooing Katherine.
Claire Cox and Jenny Galloway are admirably unfussy in the French language episodes, Cox making an intelligent, decisive princess. And the unheroic strand’s continued in full-flavour lowlifes from Ridgeway (Bardolph, the other end of the lower echelons from Williams), Sean Jackson’s Nym and Roger Sloman as a bad-tempered, knife-wielding Pistol.
Archbishop of Canterbury/Sir Thomas Erpingham/King Charles VI: David Collings.
Bishop of Ely/CaptainMacMorris/Lewis the Dauphin: Tom Vaughan Lawlor.
King Henry V: Elliot Cowan.
Duke of Gloucester/John Bates: Christopher Brandon.
Duke of Clarence/Monsieur Le Fer: Ross Armstrong.
Duke of Exeter: Gerard Murphy.
Earl of Westmoreland/Alexander Court/Governor of Harfleur: Peter Harding.
Bardolph/Michael Williams/Duke of Burgundy: Fred Ridgeway.
Nym/Duke of Orleans: Sean Jackson.
Pistol: Roger Sloman.
Mistress Quickly/Alice: Jenny Galloway.
Boy/Princess Katherine: Claire Cox.
Earl of Cambridge/Captain Gower: Andrew Westfield.
Lord Scroop of Masham/Captain Jamy/Constable of France: Stuart Bowman.
Sir Thomas Grey/Montjoy: Mark Arends.
Captain Llewelyn: Mike Hayward.
Director: Jonathan Munby.
Designer: Mike Britton.
Lighting: Oliver Fenwick.
Sound: Steve Brown.
Music: Dominic Haslam.
Movement: Danny McGrath
Dialects: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Fights: Alison De Burgh.
Assistant director: Chris Meads.
2007-09-27 10:08:59