Henry IV, Part 2 (1990, Michael Bogdanov) part 10 of 15

Shakespeare's "King Henry IV, Part 2" from "The War of the Roses" (English Shakespeare Company, UK, 1990) is a direct filming, from the stage, of Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington's 7-play sequence based on Shakespeare's history plays.

Lord Hastings - Jack Carr
Earl of Westmoreland - Ben Bazell
Lord Mowbray - Michael Fenner
Prince John of Lancaster - John Dougall
King Henry IV - Michael Cronin
Henry Prince of Wales - Michael Pennington

Director Michael Bogdanov

Commentary By Henry Norman Hudson on the King:

play of "Richard the Second", where he is the controlling spirit. For, though Richard is the more prominent character in that play, this is not as the mover of things, but as the receiver of movements caused by another; the effects lighting on him, while the worker of them is comparatively unseen. For one of Bolingbroke's main peculiarities is, that he looks solely to results; and, like a true artist, the better to secure these he keeps his designs and processes in the dark; his power thus operating so secretly, that in whatever he does the tiling seems to have done itself to his hand.

How intense his enthusiasm, yet how perfect his coolness and composure ! Then too how pregnant and forcible, always, yet how calm and gentle, and at times how terrible, his speech! how easily and unconcernedly the words drop from him, yet how pat and home they are to the persons for whom and the occasions whereon they are spoken ! To all which add a flaming thirst of power, a most aspiring and mounting ambition, with an equal mixture of humility, boldness, and craft, and the result explains much of the fortune that attends him through all the plays in which he figures. For the Poet keeps him the same man throughout.

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Entertainment

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• Shakespeare
• King-Henry-IV
• 2H4
• play
• Michael-Cronin
• theatre
• English-history