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. 

Once again the production style is harmonious with the other plays in this sequence, proving the marvellous versatility of the set and the appropriate musical style of the singers and instrumentalists. This time the scenes must represent not only the chilly confines of the court and the cosy chaos of Eastcheap, but also the bucolic placidity of rural Gloucestershire where Justice Shallow lives untroubled by anything but fond memories until Jack Falstaff re-enters his life. Oliver Ford Davies is the perfect foil to Anthony Sher in these scenes, so bound up in the past that he does not see his old friend for what he has become. Falstaff and Bardolph's shameless muster of the local men should give us excellent reason not to feel sentimental about Hal's rejection of him at the end of the play - it is no wonder that the Oldcastle family successfully insisted that this character should not bear their name in these plays.

Anthony Sher's portrayal of Falstaff in this play was more successful, perhaps because the character here is less a figure of fun and more venal and complex. He seemed visibly diminished at the end when pathetically asserting that he would be called for privately after the public humiliation of his rejection by the new king. 

Jasper Britton as the old and by now sick King Henry IV gave a moving portrayal of disintegration and despair as the dissolute ways of his heir threatened to leave him dying with no hope for England. The final scene between father and son, played with great tenderness, was most compelling.

Alex Hassall's Prince Hal was less opaque as his development is clearer and his assumption of royal responsibility both genuine and irrevocable. His is not, however, a particularly warm characterisation; the playing about with Falstaff and others has to seem rather callow when there is an early soliloquy in Part One in which he assures us he will throw it off; the crushing public rejection of Falstaff is inevitable but cruel. There were signs that Hal was banishing the knight out of self-knowledge that he would be too easily tempted to indulge him again if he were present, and that this firm reaction was part of the necessary shouldering of his new task; this was interesting, but hardly sympathetic.

What was particularly fine about this production was the sure juxtaposition of very different tones from scene to scene, and often within scenes. This was the result of fine ensemble work from the entire company as much as the performances of the leading actors.