Review – Henry V, Headlong, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 8th March 2023

Posted on March 9, 2023 by therealchrisparkle

Wasn’t it Bonnie Tyler who said, I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night; he’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight? I think it was. And if there’s one thing Britain could do with right now, it’s a national hero. Someone to lead us once more into the breach, someone to get their hands dirty in the fight scenes. Someone to stir our desires, raise our spirits, smack our heads together and put us back on the right route. We need a King Harry!

And Headlong, in collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe, the Leeds Playhouse and the Royal and Derngate, have done their darndest to give us one, in the form of Oliver Johnstone as the eponymous warrior King. But this King Henry is no straightforward military machine. He’s a complex soul. Quirkily opening with a scene from Act IV of Henry IV Part II, we see that he’s hungry for power, taking the crown off his father before he’s even dead; but he’s also riddled with self-doubt. In a fascinating reading of the role, every time the king makes a great decision or rallies the troops with a stirring speech, afterwards, he doubles up in internal agonies.

His famous breach speech at the siege of Harfleur starts with him cowering on the floor, slowly daring to build in confidence as his words hit home. Not so much whooping up his fighting men, he’s actually using the speech to bestow strength on himself. It’s only when the French are fully defeated, and he’s taken the land he wants, that he relaxes – to an extent; his self-doubt is replaced with a short temper and an even shorter fuse. Normally, that final scene where he woos Katherine is treated as light relief and an insight into the more human aspect of Henry’s personality. Not in this production. He’s as snappy as a crocodile that’s just been given bad news.

But what am I doing, starting at the end? Let’s go back to the beginning. Holly Race Roughan’s production has sliced away many of the unnecessary fripperies, to bring us a Henry V that’s lean, direct, clear and in your face. None of this muse of fire nonsense, that’s out; no Archbishops and bishops nattering on the sidelines. Instead, it concentrates on the action, the motives, and the arguments. A few words with his brothers and his uncle and it’s straight in with the French Ambassadors and the mocking tennis balls. To help us keep up with this extremely pacey production, the cast frequently announce the change of scene and tell us which characters they are playing. Brecht would have loved it. And it’s a simple device that works incredibly well. Traditionally Henry V has been considered the most patriotic of plays, right down to Churchill using Lord Olivier’s famous performance in the 1944 film for wartime propaganda purposes. This production excels at bringing out the question of responsibility in war, and the consequences of marching into other countries’ territory – it reveals the nationalistic pettiness that can have so much influence on people’s behaviour.

You may have gathered that if you’re a Shakespeare purist, this is probably not the production for you. I’m not sure that the immortal bard would have expected the new King to be greeted with a rousing chorus of God Save Our Gracious King, nor would Pistol have called Fluellen a Welsh C*nt. Nor is it that likely that the Dauphin and Orleans would have had such a – shall we say – close bromance. But Shakespeare’s big and strong enough to look after himself; he’s been performed for the last four hundred years, and he’ll certainly be performed for the next four hundred. So no need to get anxious on his behalf.

Moi Tran’s simple set consists of two rows of chairs either side of the stage that the cast occupy whilst they’re not actually involved in a scene, in front of a big green ruffled curtain that occasionally rises to reveal a nicely antiqued mirror wall, perfect for the King’s soul-searching speeches. It’s a deliberately small and plain set; you can look around the back and the sides to see the backstage gubbins and people occasionally walking around. It adds to the sense of performance right here right now – tonight, in this very theatre, in front of this very audience, ten people have come together to tell the story of Henry V. It’s up to us to interpret what we see and let our imaginations run riot within the wooden O. It’s what the Chorus would have wanted, if his opening speech had been kept. The artificiality of the presentation is highlighted in the very final scene – again, not written by Shakespeare – which brings the story fully into 21^st century Britain. It involves an official, someone trying to take British Citizenship, and a vacuum cleaner. I’ll say no more.

The whole show is extremely slickly presented and performed by an excellent ensemble who dovetail beautifully into their respective roles and scenes. Oliver Johnstone is excellent as Henry, at times meek and uncertain, at others bombastic and cruel. He gives a great reading of the text – clear, emotional and nuanced; in the scene, for example, where he realises he has been betrayed by his friend Scroop, he treads the finest of lines between fury and pure sadness. He’s really going to miss his old buddy – but it won’t stop him from choking him to death.

Helena Lymbery is outstanding as King Henry IV, and Henry’s uncle Exeter – a true support and enforcer who will stand for no nonsense. I really enjoyed the performance by Jon Furlong as Bardolph – if there is one stand-out moment of the play it’s probably the end of Act One and the death of Bardolph; a superb piece of theatricality. Joshua Griffin is great as the belligerent Fluellen, and Eleanor Henderson is also terrific as the obnoxiously entitled Prince Louis. And Geoffrey Lumb beautifully conveys the range of emotions faced by the King of France as he at first defends his country but then realises when he has been beaten. But the whole cast do a first rate job of clearly, succinctly, and punchily bringing this 16^th century play to life. The show continues in the Royal auditorium until 18^th March.

Production photos by Ant Robling

Five Alive Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Imperium, RSC at the Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, 7th December 2017

Posted on December 11, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

What’s an imperium, I hear you ask? Good question. Tiro, Cicero’s slave, whom he frees to become his personal secretary, explains all in the first play of Mike Poulton’s adaptation of Robert Harris’ Cicero Trilogy. Imperium is the word the Romans used to mean the power of life and death given by the State into the hands of a single individual. In other words, if you get an imperium, you’re an awfully powerful guy.

I had no expectations of this theatrical treat in advance of the full day’s commitment required to see the plays in one fell swoop. Gentle reader, I am no classics scholar, unless you count my Latin O level, Grade B, of which I am (I believe) justly proud. Before seeing this production, I knew very little of Cicero; apparently, he came from a family of chick-pea magnates, who knew? I haven’t read Robert Harris’ books, although I did spot him in the audience – along with, inter alia, Richard Wilson and Jeremy Irons. I know, shamelessly star-spotting. If anything, I was fearful of a rather dry and dusty Latinate trawl through speeches and murders and Ides of March. And whilst those elements do exist in this seven hours plus marathon (yes, really), there’s absolutely nothing dry or dusty about it. In fact, I had no idea at all that within the first ten minutes I’d be laughing my head off at the interplay between Tiro, nattering intimately with the audience, and Cicero, moaning in the background, complaining of Tiro’s excessive exposition.

This is a hugely entertaining, beautifully written, superbly performed examination of Cicero at the heart of Roman Republic conspiracies, and one of the most enjoyable trips to the theatre I’ve had in ages. There are two plays – Part One, Conspirator, and Part Two, Dictator, and if you don’t see them all on the same day I would most definitely recommend you see them in the right order. Each is split into three parts, so you get the rather old-fashioned delight of having two intervals. I always think that makes more of an event of an evening at the theatre; Coward, Rattigan and their ilk would have been thrilled. Part One follows Cicero’s successful election as Consul, much to the annoyance of his rival Catiline; and the machinations of those other power-players, the super-rich Crassus and the ambitious Julius Caesar. We also see Cicero’s family life, with his loyal but frequently dismayed wife Terentia, and his adored daughter Tullia; and there are his protégés, Clodius and Rufus, neither of whom are entirely reliable. By the end of the first play, Cicero seems to be on his way down, and Clodius is on the ascendant. The second play moves on to Caesar’s success and his murder – which has consequences that permeate the remainder of the evening, plus the subsequent misrule of Mark Antony, and the rise of young Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son.

Anthony Ward’s superb design literally sets the scene, with a close-up of two mosaic eyes on the back wall suggesting that, when in Rome, Frater Magnus is always watching you. Stairs descend on to the stage, creating the perfect illusion of the Senate; behind them are hidden further stairs where the mob might approach from below. Beneath the surface of the main stage, the floor opens up inventively to reveal further stairs down; or Lucullus’ fish pool; or any one of a number of clever entrance/exit opportunities. Gareth Ellis’ merry band of six musicians play Paul Englishby’s stirring incidental music to great effect, at times both spookily conspiratorial and triumphantly magisterial.

There are a couple of things that slightly irritated me about the production; and they are slight. The first, I guess, is Robert Harris’ fault. I was a little disappointed to discover at the beginning of the second play that we don’t get to see what happened under Clodius’ rule; he ends the first play so menacingly that there’s got to be a fine tale to tell there. Sadly, we don’t see it for ourselves, although good old Tiro fills us in with all the missing information that happened between the two plays. Secondly, why does Cicero age throughout the second play, so that by the end he is an old man, whereas neither Tiro nor Cicero’s brother, Quintus, befall the same fate? Maybe they dosed up on the Caligae Numerus Septem; they should let us know their secret. And they didn’t need the unsubtlety of presenting Pompey as a Roman Donald Trump, which was basically a cheap laugh at the expense of a more appropriate characterisation. He should have taken a leaf out of Tiro’s book, who makes some very funny allusions to 2017 Britain and its crises whilst still remaining definitely Anno B.C. However, having a couple of aberrations in seven-and-a-half hours’ worth of theatre is, I think, perfectly forgivable.

I’ve seen Richard McCabe on stage a few times in the past, but nothing could have prepared me for how stupendously good he is as Cicero. I know it’s a cliché, but this genuinely is the role he was born to play. He captures every aspect of his personality perfectly, from his oratory, his thinly veiled faux-humility when he’s told how great he is, his calculating ability to take a risk when dealing with powerful people, to his doting on his daughter and his severe disappointment to his wife. Noble of spirit, but also delightfully human too, he’s a sheer joy to watch. For much of the time he performs an incredibly effective double act with Joseph Kloska as Tiro. A faithful servant, but always on hand to speak his mind and give valuable advice, Mr Kloska gives a tremendous performance. He takes us the audience into his confidence and we look on him as a likeable old pal and a direct conduit for us to get involved in all these political machinations. We trust and admire Tiro, and believe every word he says. For this to work, it’s vital for Mr Kloska to build a great relationship with the audience and he truly does.

No one in this wonderful cast puts a foot wrong, with some stunning individual performances and extended scenes of really exciting and memorable drama. Joe Dixon is superb, first as the aggressive and bullying Cataline, scarred and scary, and then in the second play as the mercurial Mark Antony, with his alternating soft and violent approaches to dealing with the SPQR. Peter de Jersey is also riveting to watch as the cutthroat Julius Caesar, from his early days “discussing land reform with the wife of a client” (yeah right) to his maniacally imperious ascendance to becoming a god. Pierro Neel-Mie is outstanding as the louche Clodius, following his progress from caring Ciceronian acolyte to power-mad Tribune; a man who says it’s time to seek a wife, and this time not someone else’s, a man prepared to commit sacrilege at the temple of the Vestal Virgins by waving his willy at them. Mr Neel-Mie returns in the second play as the quietly vicious Agrippa, Octavian’s right-hand man; and you wouldn’t want to cross him.

There are also excellent performances from Oliver Johnstone as Cicero’s follower-cum-opponent Rufus, and as the totally unnerving Octavian – if ever butter-wouldn’t-melt turned into the sourest desire for retribution, he’s your man. Siobhan Redmond is excellent as Terentia in a performance that progresses directly from comedy to tragedy; as is John Dougall as a delightfully hesitant Brutus, Michael Grady-Hall as a scruffy but charismatic Cato and David Nicolle as a slimy Crassus. But the whole ensemble is magnificent, and everyone works together to create a superb piece of tight, gripping theatre. You’d never know you’d spent virtually all day in the theatre, it’s so enjoyable that the time just flies by.

If you don’t know how Cicero’s story ends – well I’m not going to tell you, but if a cat has nine lives, I guess he reached his tenth. Find out for yourself by going to see these brilliant plays between now and 10th February 2018.