Ellen Terry with Eileen Atkins

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 21 January 2016

The great actress Ellen Terry began touring with a series of lectures on Shakespeare in the latter part of her career. She drew her material from her vast experience of acting many of the major female parts. 

Eileen Atkins has selected and arranged excerpts from these lectures both to show the sorts of things that Ellen Terry discussed, and to showcase her own considerable acting talent. Thus we see Atkins's impression of Terry's analysis and performance of a number of celebrated roles - Beatrice, Rosalind (a part she regretted that she had never actually played), Desdemona, Viola, Juliet. No matter that Terry was in her sixties when she began lecturing, and that Eileen Atkins is now over eighty - the delivery is sharp, the verse speaking assured, and the revelation of character through the recitation of mere excerpts of speeches is fascinating and rewarding.

As a tribute from one great actress to another, looking back over a century, and as a tribute by Ellen Terry to her beloved Shakespeare, this was a marvellous use of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

Henry V

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 14 January 2016 (evening) as part four of 'King & Country'

This new production from the RSC is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, with music by Paul Englishby. It features Alex Hassell as King Henry and Oliver Ford Davies as the Chorus, with Sarah Parks as Mistress Quickly, Joshua Richards as Bardolph and Fluellen, and Martin Bassindale as the Boy. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with Richard II and the two parts of Henry IV as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

The programme note helpfully suggests that this is not really a 'pro-war' play, nor an 'anti-war' play (it has been seen as both in response to contemporary crises) but rather a 'going-to-war' play. This production was neither gung-ho nor overtly critical of war, and the king was neither thoughtlessly militaristic nor unwilling to fight.

Henry IV Part Two

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 14 January 2016 (afternoon) as part three of 'King & Country'

This revival of the RSC's 2014 production is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis with music by Paul Englishby. It features Jasper Britton as King Henry IV, Alex Hassell as Prince Hal, Anthony Sher as Falstaff, Sam Marks as Ned Poins, and Oliver Ford Davies as Justice Shallow. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with Richard II, Henry IV Part One and Henry V as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

Considering that the play has a very similar structural pattern to that of Henry IV Part One it is striking how different the tone is. The prolonged 'Eastsheap' scene with Doll Tearsheet (Emma King) and Mistress Quickly (Sarah Parks, played with a distractingly broad accent) seems more hectic, and Falstaff here even more selfish, while the king is far weaker physically, and the scenes between Falstaff and Justice Shallow, the erstwhile companion of his youth, are tinged with a melancholy regret for the passage of time (these have no direct parallel in the earlier play). In the meantime Prince Hal is brought to realise that slumming it with the likes of Ned Poins is by no means a meeting of equals, while his relationship with his father barely survives a deathbed misunderstanding. 

Henry IV Part One

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 13 January 2016 as part two of 'King & Country'

This revival of the RSC's 2014 production is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis with music by Paul Englishby. It features Jasper Britton as King Henry IV, Alex Hassell as Prince Hal, Anthony Sher as Falstaff, Sam Marks as Ned Poins, Sean Chapman as the Duke of Northumberland and Matthew Needham as Hotspur. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with Richard II, Henry IV Part Two and Henry V as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

In this production, the play begins as if exactly where Richard II left off - Henry's protestation of innocence and vow to go to the Holy Land at the end of the former play leading quite naturally into the opening speech of this play. Here, the continuity is further emphasised by the ghostly figure of the murdered king who turns away and vanishes as the play begins.

Richard II

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 12 January 2016 as part one of 'King & Country'

This revival of the RSC's 2013 production is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis with music by Paul Englishby. It features David Tennant as King Richard, Jasper Britton as Bolingbroke, Oliver Ford Davies as the Duke of York and Julian Glover as John of Gaunt. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with the two Henry IV plays and Henry V as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

The play opens with a scene in which the king attempts to arbitrate in the quarrel between his cousin Bolingbroke and another courtier Thomas Mowbray. But his authority does not extend so far as to compel these adversaries to a reconciliation and soon the king concedes that a trial by combat must take place. In just a few altercations the fatal gap between assumed authority and personal weakness is laid bare and the train of events leading to Richard's deposition and murder is begun.