KING HENRY VI Parts I, II and III (Shakespeare Happy Hours)****

 

By Alan

Link to Part I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm1Dmjl0s6o

Link to Part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6e7I5QEmfs

Link to Part III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F8GuMuKJxQ

Available until: indefinitely

Once upon a time there was a king and a queen who had a baby boy called Henry. For nine months they were happy but then Henry’s father died, leaving Henry as king. Henry’s mother Catherine was French and the English nobles did not trust her and she was not allowed to look after him. Henry had lots of help with ruling his kingdom but when he finally became king on his own when he was fifteen he did not find the duties easy. He was a quiet man and had trouble making decisions. Also a man named Richard believed should be king rather than Henry. All he could do was trust his friends to help him but what if his friends weren’t as trustworthy as he thought?

The Henry VI plays are really sad. There’s lots of fighting and double-crossing and death and if Henry VI was around now he would probably wish his life hadn’t been eventful enough for three whole Shakespeare plays. In a way it’s the same story over and over again but not in a boring way. In every play people who Henry VI trusts turn out not to be trustworthy. That must have been really awful to go through and it led to him suffering from a psychiatric illness. Being the monarch is such a difficult job and it’s not a job you can really get out of unless someone kills you. Henry VI finds it really difficult but he never considers handing the crown over to any of the other people who want it.

As usual Shakespeare didn’t copy history exactly. He has written loads of really good mad scenes but his plays didn’t include the Henry VI’s psychiatric illness or not in an obvious way. Henry struggles to cope and at one point he totally breaks down but it doesn’t seem to be labelled as madness. Maybe Shakespeare just had enough to write about or maybe he thought Elizabeth I wouldn’t like it. But I’m not totally sure about that because Shakespeare hasn’t really written Henry VI in the most positive way. He writes about Henry VI as a man who isn’t suited to being a king and doesn’t want to be king. He isn’t very confident and he has trouble making decisions. This isn’t necessarily a sign of mental illness. Some people are just naturally not that confident and not that good at making decisions but mental health problems can make communication and decision making and adapting to new situations more difficult so maybe this is like a very small hint.

The plays weren’t written in order. Part II was first, then Part III, then Part I but I don’t think you’d guess. Part II does lead more smoothly into Part III than Part I does into Part II but not in a way that obviously says Part I was written later. It was really interesting watching this not that long after watching Richard III which comes after it. Shakespeare Happy Hours did the plays in order but I liked watching these three after Richard III because I could see everything moving towards the way things were in Richard III and seeing characters I knew popping up everywhere. The casting isn’t completely the same throughout, some roles change actors but most actors stay in the same roles.

Deb Kinghorn plays King Henry VI. I wasn’t so convinced in Part I because I couldn’t really see her as a little boy, she did seem a bit too much of an adult and she has so much presence and dignity the last thing she seems to be is incompetent. But that’s actually part of a very clever performance. Some people might just listen to how Henry speaks and think how good it sounds and go along with what he wants. But if you really listen to what he’s saying and to the decisions he makes you realise he’s actually not dealing with the situations very well. In Part II Deb Kinghorn shows him unravelling in a really emotional way which is emotional to watch too. In Part III he seems older, sadder and more helpless and he tries to find solutions which just make things worse. It’s really powerful and even though I had trouble believing in her as a child I did believe in her as a man.

The woman who becomes Henry’s wife Queen Margaret was played by Deb Radloff (I did get her name right, she and Henry are both played by women called Deb). When she arrived she was like a romcom character, she and the Earl of Suffolk (Tom Kanji) obviously really liked each other and it was funny but he was actually arranging for her to marry Henry VI. But they were arranging a relationship between themselves at the same time. That should have been a clue really about how cold Margaret is. She does seem to care about Suffolk and she loves her son but she’s also out for what she can get. Suffolk is the same. He seems nice some of the time and I like his chemistry with Margaret but he’s quite nasty too.

William Sutton plays the Earl of Warwick. The character didn’t seem so bad the first time I watched these plays but this Warwick was really slimey and sneering. He sneaks around behind people’s backs and pretends to support everyone. He’s in the background in Part I, takes a bigger role in Part II and is basically running the show in Part III.

Joel Colodner plays Richard Plantagenet, later Duke of York (his son is the future Richard III). He seems really intelligent and like he knows what he’s doing but he’s not a good man. His son Richard played by Colin Hurley takes after his dad and he’s even worse but he’s great to watch.

There are so many other characters in these plays I don’t think I’ll mention them all but here’s a few. Natasha Magigi played Joan de la Pucelle (Joan of Arc) and then came back as the Duchess of Gloucester in Part II. My mind went in a weird fanfiction direction about Joan cheating death and marrying the Duke of Gloucester. Joan and the Duchess do both have a witchcraft connection.

Montgomery Sutton played Lord Talbot (later Earl of Shrewsbury) as well as the future Edward IV. Lord Talbot/Shrewsbury was confident and intelligent and he cared about people especially his son. Edward IV just seemed really awful especially the way he treated Lady Grey.

Jerome Harmann-Hardeman is really good at making an impression when he’s not actually doing anything. When he played the Earl of Salisbury you could tell he was really listening to what everyone said and thinking hard about it. In Part III he played the Duke of Clarence and you could see he was really uncomfortable about the things he was hearing but didn’t really want to get involved.

Dylan Kammerer as Humphrey Duke of Gloucester was one of the more likeable characters and he was brilliant when his wife was banished. Joel Iwaskiewicz made Cardinal Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester really odious. Emma Pallant seemed to come out of nowhere, I don’t remember her being in any other plays but she was a really brilliant Jack Cade, she gave him so much personality and I wish he was in the play more. I also really liked the son who killed his father and the father who killed his son in Part III. That was really emotional and I wondered if they were real or if maybe Henry imagined them because he was so upset about all the fighting.

Wilson Wilsonian appeared again and he’s cuddly bear with such a nice smile but he was really dramatic and scary in these 3 plays. A guy called Rutland was terrified of him, like he wanted to exit but he knew he’d be pursued by a bear.

All the fighting was really good. We didn’t see it in details like in the TSMGO plays but the sword clashing and groans is really good and we can imagine the rest. I also really liked how they did the Spirit with a light and a whispery voice.

This is a really good group of plays, sometimes all the double crossing can feel like a bit much but there are some great moments, great actors, great speeches. I think it’s totally worth it and sticking with the same actors gives it continuity and really makes the plays feel connected together.