A populist Hal treads a fine line between daring and convention
Henry V The Barn, Cirencester
Shakespeare on stage stands harried amid a cultural battlefield at the moment. Who gets to do it and how is under scrutiny. Do you cut it, rewrite it, fully colour-blind cast it, gender-flip it, play it “straight”?
Since 2015, we’ve seen a conventional, compelling Henry V at the RSC, Michelle Terry finding an androgynous humanity in the warrior-king at Regent’s Park, and Sarah Amankwah spiritedly taking on the mantle at the Globe.
The Barn enters the fray with modest resources, gutsiness, and no little risk. Shakespeare might look a safe bet. It’s anything but; the Barn must court a young audience and those inclined to think the Bard is boring, respecting those who don’t want it too modishly mucked with. Hal Chambers’s fleet-footed, vervefilled account achieves an Agincourtlike victory against daunting odds, speaking to disparate factions.
Its chief selling point is that it positions the action in a recognisably modern context. Making hi-tech use of video projection, it bombards us with imagery, the salient and seemingly reassuring St George’s cross contrasting with a welter of snaps of civic unrest – rallies, marches and riots. The old king’s death is relayed on a news channel called EBC; we’re in a possibly post-brexit world of surging English nationalism.
The point, as I see it, is that Hal (Aaron Sidwell, below) is riding wild forces of populism and his journey overseas requires him not simply to man up but wise up, acknowledge the loneliness of leadership, the miracle nature of military success and, in making play for Katharine’s affections after her countrymen are slaughtered, the need for compromise and amity.
The evening ends pointing towards the breakdown of the kingdom under Henry VI, reinforcing how fragile a nationalistic project can be – but inevitably, given the historical detail, there’s only so far the contemporary concept can serve as a coherent thesis. All the same, the framing device acts as a galvanising force; the eight-strong cast (50-50 gender-split) strain every sinew to keep movements precise, on high physical alert.
Those seeking the highly experimental and those who are diehard purists may shudder, but in its finely achieved tug-of-war between conventionality and artistic daring, it shows a nimble way
forward.