A ravishing display that’s fit for a king
Henry V (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)
Verdict: Royally staged
ARRESTINGLY handsome Alex Hassell is excellent as Henry V in a Stratford production which heads to London’s Barbican in November. Yet Mr Hassell’s good looks are not the only thing to ravish the eye. The costumes, lighting and back-projections — at one point of an autumnal night sky with scudding clouds and mysterious Moon — help to transport us to Harfleur and Agincourt as Monmouth- born Henry wallops the complacent French.
Shakespeare’s play can sometimes seem little more than a series of shouty battle scenes. Mr Hassell and director Gregory Doran give us something more varied.
There is plenty of humour in this show, particularly when a Scots officer (Simon Yadoo) starts jabbering in an incomprehensible accent. Cue looks of puzzlement from his comrades. Terrific comedy. Joshua Richards’s verbose, decent Fluellen is a top effort, too.
Amid this merriment and the diplomatic games and the manliness of blood-spattered battle scenes, we are shown a king who thinks and prays hard before taking his men to war.
When Henry warns Harfleur’s governor that, unless he surrenders, terrible things will happen, we sense the English king’s reluctance to let slip his dogs of war.
What a chilling speech he gives, with its lines about ‘ shrill-shrieking daughters’ and the image of ‘naked infants spitted on pikes’; how topical, too, given what we hear of Islamic State maniacs using rape and civilian murder as acts of war.
Much to admire here: the russeted English, the blue-clad French, the sparseness of the stage more than compensated for by the scene- setting of a cardiganed, curatorial Oliver Ford Davies as the chorus.
The show is not faultless: the death of Falstaff is always an undercooked affair, all offstage; a plot against the king comes and goes in a trice; Antony Byrne’s Pistol and mates look more like old Hell’s Angels than army hangers-on.
As for Simon Thorp’s King of France, with that hairdo he resembles a third- rank pub rocker.
Consider instead the loveliness of Jennifer Kirby’s Princess Katherine, the mincing silliness of the Dauphin (Robert Gilbert), but most of all this young, questioning king who is properly respectful of earthly rank and heaven’s supremacy.
Mr Hassell, whose face somehow combines the young Jude Law with Buzz Lightyear’s eyes and nose, was fine as Prince Hal in the RSC’s Henry IV plays a year or so ago. Here he moves up a gear and demands to be considered as one of our top-league actors.
This richly rewarding Henry V shows us the loneliness of kingship and the power of history to inspire us. It is unashamedly proud of its central figure, making Henry a patriotic hero — and just in time for the referendum on the EU!