Henry IV, Part 2 (1990, Michael Bogdanov) part 3 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.


Falstaff - Barry Stanton
Falstaff's Page - John Tramper
Lord Chief Justice - Hugh Sullivan
Lord Mowbray - Michael Fenner
Lord Hastings - Jack Carr
Mistress Quickly - June Watson
Henry Prince of Wales - Michael Pennington
Poins - Charles Dale

Director Michael Bogdanov

From Charles Cowden Clarke's"Shakespeare-Characters" :

The character of Sir John Falstaff is, I should think, the most witty and humorous combined that ever was portrayed. So palpably is the person presented to the mind's eye, that not only do we give him a veritable location in history, but the others, the real characters in the period, compared with him, appear to be the idealized people, and invented to be his foils and contrasts. As there is no romance like the romance of real life, so no real-life character comes home to our apprehensions and credulities like the romance of Sir John Falstaff. He is one grand identity. His body is fitted for his mind—bountiful, exuberant, and luxurious; and his mind was well appointed for his body—being rich, ample, sensual, sensuous, and imaginative.

The very fatness of his person is the most felicitous correspondent to the unlimited opulence of his imagination; and but for this conjunction the character would have been out of keeping and incomplete. Fancy a human thread-paper with Sir John's amount of roguish accomplishment! No power of reasoning could induce a motion of sympathy with such a compound. In most men, wit is the waste-pipe of their spleen in contemplating the happiness of others; in Falstaff it is the main supply of a robust structure, and is the surcharge of fun and good temper. His wit is the offspring and heir to his love of laughter, the overflowing of his satisfaction with himself and his good terms with all men.

He keeps both body and mind in one perpetual gaudy-day; his is the saturnalia, the carnival, of the intellect, and his body he rejoices with sack-posset, and his mind with jokes and roars of laughter; and with himeach acts upon and with the other—the true sign of a strong constitution. Falstaff's is not a "clay that gets muddy with drink;" his sensuality does not sodden and brutify his faculties, but it quickens their temper and edge. It gives wings to his imagination, and—to use his own words—fills it with " nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes."

He is amenable to the charge of a host of vices, any one of which would strand and shipwreck an ordinary character. He is an indicted coward, a braggadocio, a cheat, a peculator, a swindler, and a liar, etc., and yet, withal, so far are we from voting him to Coventry for all his delinquencies, there are few of us who would refuse to" march through Coventry" with him, at the head of his scarecrows; and one reason for this tolerance— not to say this sleeve-laughing encouragement of his villainous courses on the part of all ranks and classes—is, that he himself appears to have adopted and indulged in them from an irrepressible love of humour and mad waggery. He is no hypocrite; and men, from instinct, and especially your men of the world, can extenuate many vices rather than that of hypocrisy.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Shakespeare
• King-Henry-IV
• 2H4
• Falstaff
• Barry-Stanton
• Michael-Pennington
• play
• theatre
• English-history

[chrissy12148]

i have to recite mistress quickly's speech. marry if thou wert and honest man.........

[dadasopher]

thank you! what a joy to see this - what a joy to see shakespeare done so well!

[ajdukujac]

thank you so much for uploading this! i adore shakespeare plays!