Henry IV Part One
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The clock is put back. Already this season we
have had Henry V as the star of England. Now he is once more Hal, that
curiously cold fish who has to cope with one of Shakespeare's least persuasive
speeches, the soliloquy that begins "I know you all."
Still, though I regret that we have not had the
plays in order, it has to be a privilege to meet the first of the great twin
brethren; the play in which the captains and the kings have the overwhelming
competition of Falstaff.
We can praise the director, Terry Hands, for
keeping the balance. As this swelling chronicle rises from the empty spaces of
the stage, its thunders of court and battlefield are not to be put down by the
Irregular Humorists.
Here I do have a grievance. Emrys James is a
dominating actor, but I see no reason why Henry IV should be endowed with this
blustering arrogance, this form of regal paranoia. |
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It is a calculated, intricate performance, but it is
not Henry Bolingbroke. He remains for me the careworn figure of Randle Ayrton
as he stood, long ago, under the scarlet canopy.
Mr. James seems to me to be in a permanent near-Welsh
rage. Though he gains in dignity as the night proceeds, it is a reading
difficult to accept.
In this production he is often, superfluously, a
silent watchful shadow in the Boar's Head background. All at the tavern are in
good heart. Brewster Mason's Falstaff, so well reputed, has mellowed richly
into a portrait of breadth and wit that is never vulgarised. Falstaff has no
trouble with those sometimes trying evolutions on the field of
Shrewsbury.
Alan Howard takes Prince Hal in confident grace on
the first lap of his journey towards kingship; and in the second half of the
colloquy with his father he offers the night's best verse-speaking. Honour also
to Griffith Jones's Glendower, George Baker's Worcester, and Mr. James himself,
in the exchanges before battle.
Stuart Wilson is a strong, direct Hotspur; Mr. Hands
has not insisted on the once-fashionable stammer. But I think the actor should
watch his physical stance.
In brief, a production of some splendour, not yet
matched to Henry V, but giving much hope for Part Two at
midsummer.
Birmingham Post, 25.4.75.