Review – Henry V, RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 24th March 2026

Posted on March 25, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

O for a Muse of Fire is the traditional opening for Shakespeare’s Henry V, as the Chorus apologises to the audience for the writer’s and the production’s inevitable inadequacies at representing the vasty fields of France and the casques that did affright the air at Agincourt. But in RSC co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey’s new production, it starts with a cheeky flashback to Act Four (not even Act Five) of Henry IV Part Two, which has been scissored and stitched together to reveal the seemingly late king lying in state whilst the new king Henry V tries his crown on for size, only for his father to wake from his slumber and shame his son for his impatience.

There’s no doubting it’s a good joke and it reveals how keen Henry V is to get on with it. But you can already tell this production is probably not for purists. Shakespeare structures the play around the Chorus for a good reason, as a conduit between the scenes, and playing with that structure has its perils. It’s Henry V himself who, for the most part, takes on the role of Chorus, whose lines integrate, again for the most part, nicely with what the king wants to say. Not always: it does, for example, sound clumsily arrogant for Henry to deliver the Chorus’ famous reference to a little touch of Harry in the night. The Chorus’ introduction to Act Two explains that the traitors Cambridge Scroop and Grey will be getting their come-uppance; by removing that speech the revelation of their treachery comes as an unexpected surprise which wrongfoots your understanding of what’s happened so far and feels disjointed. However, their punishment by hanging is splendidly done and is a surprisingly mesmerising piece of visual theatre.

That’s at the heart of what’s wrong with this production. Visually it’s very impactful, with an enormous amount of activity on stage, with specially recruited supernumeraries from local colleges and universities to give the impression of the large number of people it takes to wage a war. Their performance of Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster’s movement direction and Kate Waters’ fight direction is vividly and immaculately done, from preparing ropes and cloths on the revolving scaffold (a very smart set design by Lucy Osborne) to opposing armies going at it, hammer and tongs.

It’s all very watchable; however, it frequently detracts from the words that are being spoken and takes your attention away from the main matter of the text, sometimes devaluing it so that it interferes with your understanding of the play. The production sacrifices clarity for spectacle; and the one thing that you really want from a Shakespeare production is properly to understand what’s going on. It must be a deliberate directorial decision to make the English and French soldiers indistinguishable from each other, thereby making the point that they’re all human, they all endure suffering and, basically, they’re all the same. But that can be confusing for the audience – and it’s not true to Shakespeare’s own words. The victorious Henry reads out the numbers of French dead – 10,000 – versus the numbers of English dead – 25. If anything emphasises the inequality of the soldiers, it’s that.

Another element of the spectacle is the surreal slow-motion movement of the ensemble as they walk across the stage or lean at perilous angles in order to hear important conversations. It made me wonder, at what point does being stylised become being pretentious? This production doesn’t always manage to stay on the right side of that dividing line. For me, that powerful speech where the king reads the numbers of the dead was ruined by the over-dramatic death swoons of cast members; beautifully executed no doubt, but almost laughable in its pretentiousness.

In fact, for all its visual enaction of the horrors of war, the production remains totally – and perhaps figuratively – bloodless. None of the sword wounds or battle bombardments ever requires the props department to fetch the tomato sauce. And why do they end the first Act leaving the first word of the second Act – Now – hanging in the air as if Henry has accidentally mistimed his cue by twenty minutes? I fear that some of the content of this production is there just because they can rather than because there’s a good reason for it.

Nevertheless, there are some excellent staging choices. The otherwise bland “English lesson” scene where Princess Katherine – Natalie Kimmerling on brilliant form – learns the English words for parts of the body is transformed by having her walking among the fields of the wounded and jiggling their agonised limbs to learn the words for their various body parts. That’s probably the funniest (and maybe sickest) presentation of that scene for many a year.

Ewan Wardrop, Paul Hunter and Emmanuel Olusanya

The performances are largely extremely good, with some of the minor roles excelling; Jamie Ballard is superb throughout, as the self-important Archbishop of Canterbury, mildly foppish and manic but then devastated in grief King of France, and perhaps best of all, as the soldier Williams, whose frank and challenging battlefield conversation with the man who turns out to be King has significant consequences. Paul Hunter brings fantastic bombast and pomposity to the role of Pistol, picking and nicking his way among the dead; Ewan Wardrop and Emmanuel Olunsanya are also excellent as his partners in crime Nym and Bardolph, whose parts are sadly rather cut out of this production.

Catrin Aaron brings a simple practicality to the role of Queen Isabel and provides an early highlight in the play as a wonderful Mistress Quickly. Tanvi Virmani impresses as The Girl, the hanger-on who comes to realise there’s more to life than just revelry. There’s also excellent support from Valentine Hanson as a dignified Henry IV and Erpingham, Sam Parks as Westmoreland, Sarah Slimani as the no-nonsense herald Montjoy, and Diany Samba-Bandza as a flirtatious Lady Scroop. Michael Elcock’s Dauphin strangely lacks the quirkiness to make him stand out as a fop – the whole tennis balls gift scene is surprisingly underplayed – or the gravitas to make him a credible ruler-in-waiting. However, Micah Balfour is outstanding as the noble Exeter, perfect as both soldier and courtier.

Alfred Enoch plays the title role; he looks the part, he speaks with authority and grandeur and can deliver a stirring speech whilst making it sound natural rather than proclaimed, which is an enviable gift. There isn’t much sense of character development, however. Henry V has a lot to learn about life, having been largely a wastrel in his Prince Hal days, too much under the influence of Falstaff. He has to learn to be statesmanlike, to be an inspirational leader, to be ruthless in quashing opponents, to be a battlefield mastermind, to be magnanimous in victory – and also how to woo a lady. But Mr Enoch’s tone and delivery is pretty much straightforward and unwavering throughout, as if he’s trying to be all those things all the time. This one size fits all approach means that it largely succeeds but occasionally you’d like a little more nuance.

A solid and visually impactful production but it’s low on clarity and, unless you’re intimately well acquainted with the text, not always easy to follow. At the start, the Prologue tells us that we the audience have to work hard to use our imaginations to fill out the swelling scene because it’s beyond the actors’ ability; but then this busy production tries to do the very thing that Shakespeare tells us it can’t achieve, and Shakespeare was right all along. Henry V continues his reign at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 25^th April.

Three-sy Does It!

Review – Pericles, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 10th September 2024

Posted on September 11, 2024 by therealchrisparkle

There aren’t many Shakespearean plays that one misses out on during a lifetime of theatregoing, but Pericles is likely to be one. I’d never seen this play before, and, indeed hadn’t looked at the text for at least 45 years. But there’s no doubt this is a fascinating play – rarely can the old phrase “from the sublime to the ridiculous” be so appropriate concerning the pen of our Beloved Bard.

With more episodes and locations than your average picaresque novel, we follow the fortunes of Pericles as he leaves Tyre (where he is Prince) to sail to Antioch, where he hopes to marry the unnamed Princess of that city state. To win her hand, he must answer a riddle; failure to answer it results in death. Pericles solves it in an instant, but making the solution public also results in death – bit of a Catch-22 there, probably a riddle worth avoiding. Therefore he flees Antioch before he can be murdered. Next, he reaches Tarsus, stopping by to offer food to the famine-stricken city; shipwrecked on leaving Tarsus, he lands in Pentapolis, where King Simonides is allowing the winner of a jousting contest to marry his daughter Thaisa. Naturally our hero wins the contest, and Thaisa’s hand. But all is not well; sailing back to Tyre, they are shipwrecked (again) and Thaisa dies giving birth to a daughter, Marina. Following tradition, Thaisa’s body is placed in a coffin and cast off into the waters, never to be seen again. Or is she…?

That’s enough storytelling to fill a book and we’ve only just reached the interval. Pericles must be the direct opposite of Waiting for Godot, where, famously, nothing happens. Here, everything that could possibly happen, happens. However, the early scenes of the play – up till Pericles’ arrival in Pentapolis – are (there’s no point beating about the bush) absolutely awful. Not, I hasten to add, because of the RSC’s production, Tamara Harvey’s direction or the company’s acting; it’s simply the words with which they have to grapple.

It is largely believed that the play is a collaboration between Shakespeare and An Other Writer; Shakespeare wrote the good bits and AOW did the rest. The mystery man is likely to be George Wilkins, an innkeeper, criminal and pamphleteer, and an associate of the King’s Men acting company, hence his familiarity with Shakespeare and his work. The language in those opening scenes is flat but garbled; intractably impersonating the florid style of the silver poets who had gone before, but falling far short of the standard required. Fortunately, the use of judicious cuts combined with the happy circumstance that Pericles is one of Shakespeare’s shortest works, means we can get on with the decent meat of the play after about half an hour or so.

The average Collected Shakespeare will list the play as one of the comedies. But there is some tough material here: incest, kidnapping to be sold into prostitution, death during childbirth; frankly, not a lot to laugh at. However, these elements are balanced with some truly engaging scenes and performances, resulting in many feelgood moments and comic sequences. The highlight of the production is King Simonides’ not-so-secret machinations to engineer a marriage between Thaisa and Pericles, a blissfully funny performance by Christian Patterson. All the scenes set in the brothel prickle with danger and corruption; and if you love a happy ending, I can’t think of a bigger jump from despair to elation than that experienced by Pericles in Act Five.

Jonathan Fensom’s simple set is dominated by ropes, suspended and intertwining; a perfect choice for a play where so many scenes are set at sea. Claire van Kampen’s evocative music is delicately and moving played by Elinor Peregrin’s team of five musicians, strong on woodwind and percussion. The text has been smartly cut and revised so that what remains of Gower’s chorus-type introductions to each act have been given to Marina, even before the audience realises it is she who is speaking. There’s only one directorial decision that jars; the artificial and showy use of hands aloft by the background ensemble. Perhaps it’s meant to recreate the dumbshows of the original text; whatever, it just looks silly. Stop it.

Alfred Enoch gives a compelling performance as Pericles; a truly noble character who rises above all his misfortunes to remain magnanimous, honest and beneficent. Mr Enoch embodies these virtues throughout the play with his clarity of interpretation, physical agility and the sheer emotion of that final scene. As his long lost Marina, the ever-reliable Rachelle Diedericks is a chip off the old block, conveying the essence of purity and decency, pleading her case for survival with lucid clarity. There are also excellent performances from Philip Bird as the super-reasonable Helicanus, Christian Patterson as the excitable Simonides, Leah Haile as the modest Thaisa, Kel Matsena as the noble Lysimachus and Jacqueline Boatswain as the kindly Cerimon and a truly villainous Bawd, matched with an equally vicious Pander played by Felix Hayes.

An excellent opportunity to see a rarely performed Shakespeare; not exactly a masterpiece but containing some of his best characterisations and individual scenes. After Pericles leaves Stratford on 21 September, it transfers to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater from 20 October.

Production Photos by Johan Persson

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!