Henry V
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Elizabeth Freestone
Designed by Lily Arnold
Shakespeare at The Tobacco Factory, Bristol
Ustinov Studio
Theatre Royal, Bath
Wednesday, 18thJuly 2018 14.30
CAST
Ben Hall – Henry V
Heledd Gwynn – Dauphin, Katherine of France
Rosie Armstrong – Bardolph / Williams / McMorris
Alice Barclay – Exeter
Melody Brown – Mistress Quickly / Gower
Alan Coveney – Archbishop of Canterbury / King of France / Westmoreland
Chris Donnelly – Pistol
Luke Grant – York / Bourbon
Joanne Howarth – Chorus, Burgundy
David Osmond – Cambridge / Fluellen
Zachary Powell – Nym / Orleans / Jamy
Amy Rockson – Montjoy
Corey Montague Sholay – Ely, boy
Ustinov Studio, Bath
Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory is the acclaimed Bristol-based touring company, here moving a few miles along the A4 to open Bath’s Summer Season in the Ustinov Studio Theatre.
The history plays I most like are Richard III and Henry V – in that order. I find the others have too much squabbling and plotting between interchangeable nobles, mainly named after County Championship cricket teams. Both Henry V and Richard III have a clear central focus. One on a heroic good guy, one on an out-and-out bad guy.
Ben Hall as Henry V
This is modern dress, the cast is small, but it’s mighty crowded on the small square black stage at the Ustinov. There are a series of grid like boxes central on the stage. We open with Henry collapsing drunk after a party with the revellers exploding across the stage (Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, Mistress Quickly) and dancing. Henry has to wake up, and gradually realize his responsibilities as the Archbishop of Canterbury (Alan Coveney) explains his claim to the French throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s explanation is done especially well here, with Henry looking hungover, and also slightly thick as he tries to follow the smooth-talking cleric’s argument. Then he has to put aside his wild youth and become the serious monarch. Like many sudden converts, he goes overboard on seriousness and discipline.
The ne’er do wells: Bardolph (Rosie Armstrong), Nym (Zachary Powell), Mistress Quickly (Melody Brown), Pistol (Chris Donnelly), Boy (Corey Montague-Sholay)
The major innovation is the role of Katherine, the Princess of France. The character is combined with The Dauphin (Crown Prince). I don’t mean that Heledd Gwynn plays both roles, or switches gender, but that the roles have become one character: Katherine, the Dauphin of France. Female. Both were the King of France’s offspring. It works as one, and she is a strong presence with shaven head, though at the interval the resemblance to Sinead O’Connor found me humming “Nothing Compares 2U” to myself and wondering why. It means changes that you wouldn’t be allowed to do if Shakespeare had a literary estate and executors. As the Dauphin, she has to be aggressive towards the English and Henry. So the scene where her attendant Alice teaches her English (Act 3, Scene 4) gets shifted right to the end of Act 5, directly before the “wooing scene” with Henry. A good idea is to make Montjoy the teacher. As Montjoy (Amy Rockson) combines the French Ambassador to the English, and French herald, it makes sense that she speaks good English. Montjoy was also a fair gender switch to female, as the sophisticated clothes, heels, hair, lipstick and manner of Montjoy contrast so well with the scruffy English herberts. On the other hand, you lose Alice’s own uncertainties with language. Here’s the BIG switch. Earlier the Duke of Orleans, her cousin, gives the Dauphin a lover’s kiss. So a distraught Katherine is taught the English for parts of the body using the slain Duke of Orlean’s body as a visual aid. And it loses all the jokes.
Heledd Gwynn as Katherine of France, with the dead Duke of Orleans
Powerful, but a very funny contrasting scene has been lost altogether to create a new one. Then it segues into the wooing scene, which has Katherine beating Henry with her fist in despair. Again, a very funny, tender scene subverted into something altogether different. The light and shade of the original is abandoned so that it makes the play one-dimensional. Let’s not go into the history- a princess was brought up as a bargaining piece for alliances. She’d have known from an early age that her choice was likely to be the King of England, or Portugal, or the Holy Roman Emperor. But then as often pointed out Henry V, with domains in France (and a French step-mother) would have been fluent in French.
Katherine (Heledd Gwynn) and Henry V (Ben Hall) in the wooing scene
Ben Hall does an interesting Henry. Impassioned, struggling with himself, propelling himself into being a cruel war leader, while agonizing over it, but maybe enjoying it too. As he stares out, face locked in a serious setting, grappling with the implications of his deeds, he somehow looks like Prince William, though possibly this Henry V is not too bright. So not a scheming baddie
The play has the fictional Henry V’s pluses and minuses which is what the production focuses on. Henry executes the three plotters at Southampton. Hang on, with a small cast, that reduces to “the plotter,” the Earl of Cambridge … I nearly typed Duke instead of Earl. Oh, dear! This is not disrespect for Prince William, the current incumbent, but the Duke of Cambridge was the pub in Little Clarendon Street, Oxford, where I had many editorial lunches.
Henry follows the known rules of war … which prohibited rape and the capture of women and clerics, then at the Siege of Harfleur threatens rape and child murder: Mow down like grass your fresh fair virgins and your flowering infants. Then back to the rules of war to have Bardolph executed; here garrotted on stage slowly for stealing a church plate (also prohibited under his own rules of war). Then in this production, that stolen plate becomes appropriated as a casual gift, or “tip” to the French herald, Montjoy, who disdainfully casts it aside. It doesn’t get returned to where it came from. So much for Bardolph’s great crime.
Historically there have been stylized rules of war so you can fight a battle without killing too many people … Native Americans on the Plains had counting coup (basically touching an enemy and escaping unharmed). Medieval wars had elaborate ransom systems, so that while the peasantry might be slaughtered in numbers, the knights and lords could get away with a ransom of (say) horse and armour. King Henry V (the person) broke that rule at Agincourt and killed the lot. The programme has notes on retrospective views of his actions, and mentions Henry V War Criminal? without mentioning the subtitle And Other Shakesperean Puzzles, of John Sutherland and Cedric Watts collection of commentaries. There are two arguments. As Henry’s claim to the French throne, like his claim to the English one, was dubious, did he have any right to be there? The big one is the killing of prisoners at Agincourt … which includes all those knights lying around, unhorsed, stuck on their backs in heavy armour, waiting to be ransomed. The French had attacked the English baggage train and slaughtered the boys and camp followers. Kill the prisoners is Henry’s retaliation… but … the sequence in the play is thus (my old 1960s Signet Classic scene numbers):
Act 4, Scene 6, last speech:
King: Hark, what new alarum is this same?
The French have reinforced their scattered men.
Then every soldier kill his prisoners
Give the word through.
Just before this, Henry has received news of the death of York, a close friend who had begged to lead the vanguard, so it could be taken as a violent reaction to that.
Directly into Scene 7,”another part of the field.” So the very next line we hear:
Fluellen: Kill the poys and the luggage? Tis expressly against the law of arms …
Gower: Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive, and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle had done this slaughter … wherefore the King most worthily hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat.
Later in the same scene:
King: I was not angry since I came to France.
Until this instant …
Besides we’ll cut the throats of those we have
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.
We don’t have the exact text as it was written in 1599. So directors can decide whether to keep that sequence (not always, is the answer), but here they followed it. So potentially Henry started the slaughter of the defenceless. Historically, the French did attack the English baggage train. The order of events is uncertain, but it seems most likely that prisoners were killed because Henry feared they might regroup late in the day, (The French have reinforced their scattered men) with so many weapons lying around, which Shakespeare does put first. They killed far fewer than Shakespeare suggests, and the English knights declined to participate, leaving the killing to the bowmen. Earlier, the bowmen shot at the horses, and there was so much muddy water that some unhorsed French knights drowned in their helmets.
Overall? It’s a vibrant version of the play. The role switching is well done. I thought Alan Coveney exceled as the smooth talking Archbishop, then the diffident King of France.
It loses to me on the balance of humour. First, those two wonderful Katherine language scenes. Then Fluellen has become a serious sort of bloke with a mild Welsh accent who says Look you a lot, rather than a pugilistic prat. Yes, the “Englishman, Welshman & Irishman” all united for the king was important for the storyline. The evidence is that Shakespeare had a good Welsh comic in his company and used him for laughs. Though the play does have Fluellen emphasize that Henry V was born in Monmouth, so also Welsh. This Fluellen wasn’t played for laughs. Maybe a Bristol company is reluctant to play up the “funny Welshman” (The joke in Bristol is that it’s “the unofficial capital of Wales” being so near the border).
The laughs should come from the revellers – Bardolph, Nym and Pistol. Pistol here is a Jack The Lad chancer, and indeed a coward, but is not a really funny coward. Bardolph gets killed quite horribly. Perhaps it’s because they all have to serve as the main army as well. Mistress Quickly (Melody Brown) answered a question we’d discussed on the way to Bath. We had read an article on the British Census and it said that “seamstress” was code for prostitute in the 19th century. I’d forgotten … Mistress Quickly mentions providing lodging for fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick … of their needles which must be the origin of the code. Though here she didn’t pause after “prick” as Shakespeare no doubt intended, for a reaction from the others (oooh!) . Nor was that pause explained to us at school (I studied it for A level). Signet Classics noted it though. The point is that she is a brothel keeper … as we’re reminded when Pistol hears at the end of the play that she has died of The French malady (pox).
Having several women in military roles is a given nowadays in a move to gender balance in casts. I still wonder how many female actors at drama school really dream of dressing up in military fatigues, pushing their hair under a hat, putting streaks of black make up on their cheeks and running about shouting. In a small company you have to do it, and the switches of Exeter and Montjoy to female worked fine. It’s the Globe question. If you want 50 / 50 gender balance, maybe Shakespeare’s Histories are just the wrong plays to do.
It’s efficient. The pre-battle scenes with the armies mixed up, and standing and reversing jackets to become French or English was excellent direction.
How the Elizabethans saw Henry V: statue in Lincoln Cathedral
It’s heavily weighted against our heroic Henry. The combined French and English flags and hope for peace if Henry and Katherine produce an heir to both kingdoms warms the heart of we Remainers in the Brexit battle. I did have the thought that it might have been contentious IF England had got through to a World Cup Final against France during the play’s run, but then the rougher sort of England fan probably doesn’t get into the Ustinov Studio too often.
There was some audience loss – three after ten minutes. A few more at the interval. That doesn’t seem to worry companies. When I was doing lecture tours, a single empty seat after a coffee break used to really upset me! On the other hand, the theatre has hard bench seats, well raked, but it means there is zero foot room beneath the row in front. At over six foot I was in real sciatic and knee pain by the interval. I have been to the Ustinov several times and not been in such severe discomfort. Then there’s often been an empty seat near us … this was full at the start. The seats are so tight that I’d avoid Shakespeare there. An hour and twenty minutes for the first part is beyond the comfort level. With shorter modern plays, I haven’t had the problem.
STAR ROLE:
Definitely Joanne Howarth’s informally Bristolian Chorus. Beautifully phrased throughout, every line given meaning and sense. Apparently the programme says she is also Burgundy. After her last chorus speech she joined the others to sit on the grid. Henry was addressing Burgundy and I wondered who it was supposed to be. I never imagined it was her.
RATING: ***
TOUR
Henry V runs in the Ustinov Studio until July 21. It returns to Bristol (Sept 12 – Oct 6) before touring to Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (Oct 9-13); The Dukes, Lancaster (Oct 16-20); Malvern Theatres (Oct 23-27); Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds (Oct 30-Nov) and Exeter Northcott Theatre (Nov 6.10).
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
4 star
Sam Marlowe, The Times ****
Natalie Haynes, Guardian ****
Anne Cox, Stage Review ****
3 star
Jeremy Brien, The Stage ***
HENRY V ON THIS BLOG:
Henry V – Jude Law, Grandage season
Henry V – Alex Hassell, RSC, 2015
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
BEN HALL
Coriolanus, RSC 2017
Salomé, RSC 2017
Peter Viney's Blog 
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