Shakespeare's Henry V (1990, Michael Bogdanov) pt 7 of 17

Shakespeare's "King Henry V" 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.

Sion Probert as Fluellen,
John Dougall as Nym,
John Tramper as boy
Paul Brenner as Pistol,
Michael Caine as MacMorris
Michael Fenner as Gower
Colin Farrell as Bardolph (actor born 1938)

Director Michael Bogdanov


The kingmakers Olivier and Gielgud set the template for portraying Shakespeare's heroes. But their performances would baffle us today, says Michael Pennington:

Everything has changed today - the industry, the audience's expectation of the
classics, standards. Professionally, these men swam in far less crowded waters:
Gielgud, who played Hamlet more or less when he wanted to, generously used to
reel off a list of parts that he thought I should ask the National Theatre to
mount productions for, just so I could play them. Olivier not only ran the
National Theatre but, with his knack for capturing the mood of a country, was
able to turn Henry V into superb propaganda during the war and personally
rallied the nation from the stage of the Albert Hall.

Such privileged positions are no longer available to the classical actor. The
term itself, with its slight ring of superiority, has even become a shaky
compliment. And audiences look more sceptically both on heroic acting and on the
grand characters it portrays. They are more likely to be caught by the sinewy
arguments and subversive ironies of Shakespeare than by the ring of a beautiful
line. An instinctive populism means they enjoy seeing the tragic hero being
tripped up by an ordinary person, a player, a grave digger or a fool. Drawn to
King Lear to experience the exceptional suffering of the perplexed old man, they
will come out feeling short-changed if they haven't also felt sympathy for
Goneril and Regan, driven to revenge by his paternal bullying.

(from "The Guardian", Saturday 21 May 2005)

Michael Pennington's "A Midsummer Night's Dream: A User's Guide" was published
in 2005 by Nick Hern.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Shakespeare
• King-Henry-V
• Sion-Probert
• play
• theatre
• English-history
• HenryV