HENRY VIII (The Show Must Go Online)****

 

By Megan

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw5dKqdQ7dI

Available until: Forever

Henry VIII isn’t usually performed very often but this is the third production I’ve seen so I feel very lucky. It’s often the very last Shakespeare play people see to complete the set and I think it must be a lovely surprise because it’s a much better play than people expect.

Henry VIII doesn’t have the biggest cast of any Shakespeare play – that’s Henry IV Part II – but it does have lots of characters. For Henry VIII, TSMGO has fourteen actors in the ensemble, two swings who also played ensemble roles and also cameos for at least six members of the production team. It works really well because it feels like a big crowd but no matter how small the roles are everyone makes so much effort with their costumes and performance so it’s like a crowd of individuals and sometimes I paused the video just so I could look at everyone properly.

There were lots of candles too. They light the actors beautifully and it made it seem even more historical. There’s also some really good music including a really beautiful song which was written and performed by Michaela Mannix as the Gentlewoman.

One thing I noticed in this production which I haven’t noticed before is that there are a lot of people in this play who are really respected at the start but then they upset the King in some way and everything changes. Katherine is my favourite character in Henry VIII even though she makes me feel sad. Sally McLean shows not just that Katherine is a really lovely and intelligent lady, she also has so much strength and character which shows what a big loss she is to the country. Joyce Branagh makes Colonel Wolsey really cold in a way that shocked me every time he is onscreen, it’s brilliant. But then in the end Ms Branagh made me feel quite sad for him and I still don’t know how she did that! The Duke of Buckingham is a much smaller role but Jeff King grabs your attention with a really powerful performance, then in his final scene he’s broken and completely different and that’s a really sad moment too.

I probably shouldn’t like Henry VIII very much really considering the suffering he causes but Lachlan McCall gives such a brilliant performance I ended up liking him quite a lot. He makes some decisions which I don’t think were really the best decisions but he also has some ‘down time’ moments when he seems like a nice man and then I totally melted at the end when he was making baby noises to his baby daughter Elizabeth. I think babies are so cute. Maybe Henry didn’t see so much of Mary or maybe she screamed a lot, that does put some people off. It was funny when Mr McCall’s cat appeared, I think he got jealous of the baby and wanted a cuddle too! Mr McCall also has a really brilliant costume and he has made himself look so much like Henry VIII, it’s quite spooky!

Ally Poole is a really interesting Anne Bullen. I was never quite sure if she was really in love with Henry or not and I really liked not knowing. She is mysterious in a really intriguing way. Gabriel Akamo plays the Duke of Norfolk and he is really good. There’s a really funny scene where other characters are trying to speak but the Duke of Norfolk won’t let them get a word in. Kirsty Cox has a really difficult job playing Cranmer as he appears quite late on but she gets your attention instantly and makes you care about what happens to him. All the cast are really good.

There are too many brilliant Ensemble moments for me to mention them all but Eugenia Low and Jes Gislason make their Gentlemen scenes really exciting and Ms Low’s reactions to the Duke of Buckingham’s final speech made the scene even more special. Sarah McCourt’s Old Lady is hilarious and Aarushi Ganji says the Epilogue beautifully.

It is really sad though because there is only one more play left after this. I still have a few which I’m going to watch when I’m a bit older and I’m sure there are lots of things I don’t understand properly now which will make more sense when I’m older but I still feel a little bit sad. I think TSMGO are so amazing and they have achieved something really incredible and I feel really lucky that I have the opportunity to watch their plays. I had read a couple of Shakespeare plays before I started watching TSMGO and I loved Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo & Juliet but I did get a bit confused with the others I tried to read. But watching TSMGO, I felt like I understood everything a lot better and I love the stories so much.

I think TSMGO productions will be great for anyone to watch because it’s not dumbed down at all but it is still really accessible. I love them and so do lots of people who are real Shakespeare experts. The standard is so high and there is so much effort and so much love put into every show. They have excellent introductions and really interesting post-show discussions which teach you so much and then there are little helpful things like having the character names onscreen which really helps you to keep track of who is who. They are all really nice people too. I know The Tempest will be brilliant next week. I’m really looking forward to it but I think the last post-show discussion will be really sad!