HENRY V (Shakespeare Happy Hours)***

 

By Alan

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WF_PiT_fe8

Available until: indefinitely

Once upon a time there was a young king named Henry, the fifth in England to bear this name. At first he was reluctant to become king but having gained the throne, he wanted to be the best king he could be. He knew that he might also have some claim to the French throne and sought to find out the truth about his heritage. But France already had a king who was far from happy to hear of Henry’s aspirations …

This is not Henry V’s first appearance in Shakespeare. He was also in Henry IV Parts I and II as Prince Hal who becomes king at the end of Part II. In Henry IV Hal was quite wild (though there’s no evidence this was true for the real Hal) and had some dodgy friends but now he’s king he’s really cleaned up his act. Or that’s what people think. It’s true he doesn’t go on tavern crawls with his old mates anymore but you could say he is still causing trouble for everyone, invading another country which he wants to take over.

Some people might think that’s his right. If he’s the rightful King of France why shouldn’t he have that title? But at the same time there are times when you have to accept how things are and get on with your business and let other people get on with theirs. It’s sad to think of all the suffering that must have happened when England was at war with France (this play is set during the Hundred Years War with France which actually lasted 116 years) but it’s hard not to be glad this play exists because it’s really good.

There is a lot of French in this play which is a bit of a problem if you don’t know French. I’m learning Spanish and that doesn’t really help much. You can kind of guess what’s going on when Katharine asks her lady in waiting to teach her English words and there’s a conversation later which has a translator but I did find It really annoying not understanding. But it wouldn’t work to say it in English instead and there wouldn’t be subtitles onstage so it’s more like the theatre if there’s no subtitles.

I was surprised at first that the Chorus was in it so much, the Chorus isn’t part of the action so in a way it makes sense to cut him if you’re doing a 90 minute production but Montgomery Sutton is so brilliant and he explains important things really well and it all sounds really exciting, like he’s teaching us all about Henry V. He sounds good speaking French too. I didn’t understand it but he sounded really French.

Not everyone sounded like their character’s nationality. Laura Piccoli (Katharine) sounds like she speaks French and Wilson Wilsonian (Boy and French Constable) is obviously a bilingual bear (I love Wilson), Jerome Harmann-Hardiman does a really good French accent as Orleans and Kathy Somssich does a funny Scottish accent as MacMaster but most people keep their own accents which are English or American. It doesn’t matter really but the accents helped me to know what side the characters were on. Zoom did have character names but most people have 2 roles and the name doesn’t always change at the start of each scene.

The role sharing was quite surprising but I think it was interesting because the actors are basically playing 2 people who don’t like each other. I think it’s interesting for actors to play characters with completely different points of view.

Lots of the characters were in Henry IV too and lots of the actors play the same characters. Alex Hernandez is back as Henry V. He is much more serious and grown up now but he has the same energy as he had in Henry IV so he still felt like the same person.

Laura Piccoli is really sweet as Katharine. I think it’s bad they had to marry each other when they didn’t know each other even though I know that was normal but it does seem like they’re starting to like each other. It’s sad what happens to them both later.

There are loads of other really good people too. Deb Radloff is really kingly as the King of France, she has this air about her that shows she is important. Ella Mock (Alice) speaks really good French and she is good at saying English words not quite in the right way but so you can understand them. Dhruv Iyangar as Pistol makes the moment where a character’s death is announced really sad and later on he eats a leek which is just like something you don’t usually see on stage. I think he is the one who says the very last sentence at the end of the chat and it is not something I expected to hear and it is so funny!

The French makes this play hard for me but I still think it is a really good play and if you don’t speak French it is still worth watching.