Henry IV is packed with glorious bawdiness and drama, but for some reason screen adaptations are rare.
The BBC took it on in 1960 with mini-series An Age of Kings, casting a likeable Sean Connery as Hotspur. Then came Orson Welles who, in a realisation of his lifelong ambition, played Falstaff in 1967’s Chimes at Midnight, a sumptuous combination of the tetralogy for the big screens.
Kenneth Branagh dreamed of Robbie Coltrane in the same role in his rousing Henry V from 1989, Michael Pennington’s masterful seven part stage series came a year later, and then Gus Van Sandt’s My Own Private Idaho sparked thousands of teenage girls’ Own Private fantasies of Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in 1991. But since then, more than 20 years of silence, and I can’t work out why. Where else can you find an aspiring leader who, while plotting his way to the top, wins the support of his “pitiful rascal” underlings by pretending to like pints? Oh, wait, hang on…
Almost six years ago, Richard Eyre, the director of the second and third parts of the BBC’s Hollow Crown series, took Notes on a Scandal and built an audacious thriller around the brilliant novel. His version of the twin peaks of Shakespeare’s genius is full of the same kind of thrill. The setting is grim, the outside scenes filmed in mucky medieval surroundings, while inside, every pallet of grey is satisfied by gloomy, depressing great halls. And for that, the atmosphere is marvellous, as is the attention to detail in the casting.
Hotspur is an arrogant twerp, he always has been, so turning him into someone to love is a thankless task. It’s a challenge Joe Armstrong more than meets with an assault of gripping northern enthusiasm. Screaming “die merrily” to rouse his rebellion, Armstrong wears the ferocity on his sleeves, always keeping the pace of the story flowing. As the king, Jeremy Irons is a relative bystander but is cracking nonetheless, and Tom Hiddleston in the first of his outings as Hal, the role all actors dream about, is magnetic — I can see why his stock is rising in Hollywood. In the gory, mud wrestling battle scenes fought on a snowy Bosky hill, he fits the gallant mould perfectly, robbing Hotspur of his youth with a frenzied look in his eyes before taking a deep breath and delivering that agonising adieu - I can’t wait to see him delivering a triumphant speech on the field of Agincourt in a couple of weeks’ time.
And, speaking of triumph, the spoils here have to go to Simon Russell Beale, whose Falstaff, looking like a ne’er do well father Christmas at the back of a soup line, fills the screen in every sense. “Have I not fallen away. Do I not dwindle? My skin hangs around me like an old lady’s gown,” he says to his fellow barflys in the tavern. Of course, we know to expect shrinking cowardice later, but there’s nothing diminished about Beale’s on screen magic. He took in all of the grubby manors of the Jacobean jester — always hilarious, always knocking the comic timing stone dead, always self indulgent — but was able to measure it with a crumpling sense of disaster. He is the perfect foil for Hal, and watching him at work, it felt like Shakespeare was being unlocked like never before.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see this play returning to our screens in the not too distant future.
This schmalzy production was an ordeal to sit through to the end. First and foremost the language was unintelligible a lot of the time - probably because Eyre had unbelievably gone for "chatty" Shakespeare which never, ever works. It obscures meaning and clarity. Nobody I have spoken to about it could understand more than half of what SRB muttered behind his beard. A grievous error by Eyre. SRB's performance lacked the ESSENTIAL appeal of Falstaff, the charisma. He was creepy and unattractive. Awful casting. TH was good when serious but the constant Hollywood smiling came over as sentimental and phoney. Hotspur was unbearable, a tedious, one-note performance that irritated beyond measure. I have never seen Shakespeare so ill-served by a director who seems not to have noticed that Michele Dockery can not DO it. When somebody speaks the lines that badly they MUST be re-cast. I think Eyre was completely out of his depth. A real wasted opportunity by the BBC after the wonderful Richard II the week before. Only Jeremy Irons provided respite in his utterly convincing performance.
Very dissapointed and I had to turn it off only half an hour in. Jeremy Iron was excellent as usual but none of the other actors engaged me. I actually found myself getting bored. Such a shame as Richard the II was brilliantly done and totally mesmerising. Will I try Part II? Probably not.
Very dissapointed and I had to turn it off only half an hour in. Jeremy Iron was excellent as usual but none of the other actors engaged me. I actually found myself getting bored. Such a shame as Richard the II was brilliantly done and totally mesmerising. Will I try Part II? Probably not.
I think this part was marvelous. Tom Hiddleston was indeed magnetic. He made me smile and laugh and worry and even fear, although I knew he will survive. His performance was exquisite, his scenes hilarious and dramatic. I feel contended.
In fairness, I'm only two minutes in, but that's how long it took for me to turn on the subtitles and head to the internet to see whether it was me or everyone was finding it to be unintelligible. (And it's not that I'm not familiar with the play, it's been a few years, but I did do it at university.)
I've seen/heard Henry IV a few times before and I'm not saying that wouldn't have helped but I thought the text was perfectly understandable and well spoken and I agree with everything Jon says in his review.
There's an odd tendency with Shakespeare -- as with most anything available to multiple adaptation -- for people to build a kind of "perfect version" in their head and any interpretation which doesn't fit that to be derided.
I used to be like that. Then I realised that there we so many adaptations, that there's no definitive version and that part of the fun and excitement is in seeing how the directors and actors will interpret the text.
SRB's was an excellent Falstaff. It's a different interpretation to the clown that's usually employed, more grounded, more realistic, more well, sad, but no less valid than Anthony Quayle who had the role back when the BBC last did this on TV.
I also think you have to look at it within the structure of the two plays. One of the problems with making him too much of a clown in part one is then have to deal with the stuff which happens in part two.
What Eyre seems to be doing is making him more of a secondary character, concentrating more clearly on Henry's story arc. So Sir John has all of his best lines, but much of the narrative agencies in scenes is with Hal, presumably because we're watching him grow into a king.
That might disappoint some Falstaff fans but it seems a perfectly reasonable approach to me.
I found it very poor and Hiddleston in particular came across like a gurning fool. That manic smile is distracting and overused. Not a charismatic actor.
I found it riveting from start to finish, and the pace was terrific. The naturalistic speaking of the dialogue made it flow well and the characterisation was strong and convincing. I'm a Scot and my native dialect probably has more in common with Shakespearean language than modern English - at any rate, I've never had the slightest difficulty understanding it and had none here.
Simon Russell Beale was wonderful and imbued Falstaff with just the right hint of tragic awareness of his own probable future to make him truly consonant with the Falstaff later spurned by his royal protegé.
Tom Hiddleston carried off the contrary character of Hal to perfection; Jeremy Irons always seemed a bit wet to me in his earlier roles but has matured magnificently and here managed to combine regal power with the awareness of age and imminent death. As a father and son pairing, they were perfect. Joe Armstrong did a damn fine job of making the "single humour" Hotspur into a credible war leader. I am looking forward to the rest of the series.
I also thought SRB's humourless non-presence (and unintelligibility at first) left a gaping hole in this production. His approach might be intellectually justifiable, but ruined the balance in the play - why would Hal spend more than about 5 minutes with him? As for the background music!!!
Luckily, the Jeremy Irons documentary straight afterwards showed me a production that demonstrated how Falstaff should be played and that the play is actually funny, as was claimed by so many who talked about it but would not have been attested to by anyone who watched Eyre's production. He showed the Globe's with Roger Allam. So I have ordered both the Globe's DVDs, and won't bother with the BBC Part II
Beale was a terrible Falstaff. I think we've got a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes" with him where all these critics are saying what an awesome performance Beale has delivered. His Falstaff was not amusing. He played it too heavy-handed. For one thing, the "honour" speech was not supposed to be so serious and dismal. He was just not enough jolly.
Hiddleston on the other hand had to do much of the heavy lifting in this relationship with his mediocre onscreen Falstaff, and he delivered as Hal. Hiddleston is great a playing characters whose true natures are hard to pin down, and Hal is hard to read. His soliloquy at the beginning (done as a voice-over) definitely suggests that there's deliberateness to his errant behaviour in that he's hiding his true nature behind this dissolute image. His Hal is warm and fun and he's got the common touch, but it's definitely a cause for wonder to see him keep the company of advanced age prostitutes and thieves and drunks, and why these people don't think it's strange his hanging out with them. I guess we don't ever trust that he's actually "lost" in this lifestyle. His father believes it, his subjects believe it, but was as the audience are told to perk up, and say look, Hal's making his own foil, his playboy, badboy image vs. the role he will assume as a warrior prince full of mettle and political shrewdness. And I think this part 1 was a very nice introduction to this journey.
The problem with this adaptation is that without a charismatic Falstaff, nothing in the rest of the cycle makes sense. You need to be able to see why Falstaff commands these ruffians as their magnetic centre, why Hal is drawn to him, and therefore why it's tragic that the relationship is ultimately lost when Hal becomes King. (And why it's an act of strength for Hal to turn his back on that former life.) Beale's Falstaff lacked that essential charisma. I feel that he was trying to play him for tragic poignancy but as a result we just got a sad sap that no one would ever want to spend time with, certainly not the heir to the throne, certainly not me the viewer for the two hours of this production. And ironically, as a result of playing him "sad" from the start, his fall from Hal's grace is actually less poignant.
I agree with the reviewer that Hiddleston was magnetic, especially when serious, but he seemed less comfortable with the lighthearted material, so the highjinks fell flat. But then again, that could have been just another a disconnect with Beale's Falstaff, because Falstaff wasn't generating that sense of manic merriment that is the heart of this play. I'm looking forward to seeing Hiddleston in Part 2 and Henry V where the role has matured a bit. Especially looking forward to Henry V, since it doesn't have Falstaff in it. Never thought I'd say that.
Sasha, "For one thing, the "honour" speech was not supposed to be so serious and dismal." How do you know?! Why not have it this way this week and that way the next? It is stimuli to use for the actor to stimulate me, that's all. A plastic flower doesn't change, so all of us lets have plastic flowers! Be aware of what you are saying and doing. All of you, you are all saying contrary things in these comments, does it not become clear to you to love an interpretation for what it is? A violet is a violet and a rose is a rose. Sentimental or light entertainment, hammy or mundane, the work is dead if not lived this way or that.
The comments on SRB's Falstaff miss out the likelihood that the director asked for a downbeat take on the character. From what I can see of the production, including the selection of scenes and lines (very extensive cuts have been made), the director is looking for a rather grim performance - a view of the histories which shows politics in the light of mortality. How that will stand up to HV, I'm not sure.
I rather liked the Percys - giving Hotspur a wife who is just as full of fire and mettle as he is, rather than the usual drippy girlie, worked rather well. Mind you, Hotspur wasn't a patch on Andrew Jarvis's mad Geordie.
Loved it. Loved all to date. Shakespeare works in multi-masquerade and this series enlarges the possible... Here's nothing theatrical, no hint of stage, no ostentatious akolyte play with words hallowed by centuries... This is real and believable, ... things-just-said-as- how-things-were... Old language metamorphosed in the mind to everyday speech. And perhaps as Hal would have had it...? [ 'let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier']
Just to add....I'm American, and well understood the dialogue most of the time. It certainly didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this production. Having not read the tetralogy before but heard much about Falstaff....the grimness has definitely been jarring.
That said, reading over so many reviews and interpretations is a learning experience! I think it will take several more viewings to decide how successful Eyre's vision is for me.
Here in the states, much is made about Tom Hiddleston's RADA background. General opinion seems to be with those who see him bringing Shakespeare to his blockbuster roles. It is fascinating to watch (and listen to) him so easily inhabiting the source material, as it were.
Honestly, it stuns me that anyone found this boring...your life and standards of interest must be ever so much higher than mine, and I let them send me off to Iraq twice in part to avoid boredom.
Loving every minute of it-I had forgoton it was on , tuned in part way, and was immediately mesmerised by Tom Hiddleston's performance.The emotional interplay between Hal and Falstaff is exceptionally moving and I can fully understand Hal's love for this man who both delights and confuses you.Have now watched both parts 3 times and each time I am enthralled by not only the performances across all the cast but with the backdrop settings which fascinate by giving the feel of a fading landscape.The way the dialogue is delivered makes it accessible to those of us who dip in and out of Shakespeare.To be honest never has Shakespeare dialogue been so easy to follow and understand.
Previous to this I have not been a big Henry admirer but this series has completely won me over.After some of the recent BBC disasters (Torchwood Miracle Day being one) I had begun to wonder why we pay a license fee but this has brought back my faith in the BBC.