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Inside Shakespeare’s mind:

Henry V as a ‘Mirror’

King Henry is maturing fast and good especially with the impatience to ascent the throne, hurting his royal father hardly few hours before dying. In full control of his royal duties, the young monarch from he beginning, displays a greater sense of responsibility and wisdom which his righteous father never had. He is strong and confident enough to claim the French throne that his father never deemed.

Credits

* Henry V – He is the Mirror of all Christian kings and has the third longest part (1105 lines) known also as the Star of England. Delivers the Crispin's Day speech, now treated as an oration.

* Duke of Exter – The King's uncle who brought English defiance to Charles VI.

* Duke of York – Two lines only and king's cousin

* Archbishop of Canterbury – His verbose and thankless verification is frequently abridged.

* Bishop of Ely – Often suffer as Canterbury does which means the loss of tribute to Henry.

* Gower – The steady average Englishman

* Fluellen – The Welsh captain and a fiery little dragon.

* Williams – A blunt soldier who argue at the camp-fire in Agincourt with the disguised Henry about the king's responsibility.

* Bardolph – The red faces Lieutenant is hanged with two other for looting.

* Lewis the Dauphine – Sends Henry the insulting tennis balls.

* Katerine – The bubbly French Princess marries Henry.

* Hostess Nell Quickly – She is now Pistol's wife. We hear from Pistol himself that Nell has died.

* Chorus – He has over half dozen expository speeches to make at different times in the play. A character sought after by Thespians to act.

King Henry – ‘Then I will kiss your lips’
Katherine – (in French) Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisees devant leur nopces,
il n'est pas le costume de France.
Henry V. Act. V, Sce 11.

King Henry is born to face challenges that face the crown of England without many of his father's staff, most of whom have passed away since. Whatever he does, the young king makes a deep impression.

This historical play is one of the Parts – 3 series written in 1599 in which Henry V succeeds his father in 1413 and who died in 1422. This was the time that the English won the battle of Agincourt against the French. In 1420, he marries Katherine, Princess of France.

Henry is delighted when he gets the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury's explanation of the ‘Salic Law’ which justifies the royal claim to the French throne and send word to the Dauphine that he will fight in France. Before Badolph, Nym and Pistol sails with the army, they hear Falstaff's death from Nell Quickly, presently Pistol's wife:-

Pistol – No; for my manly heart doth years, Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead and we must yearn therefore;

Bard – Wouls I were with him wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

Act 11, Sce. 111

At Southhampton, the King executes three traitors.

Princess Katherine has English lessons from her confidante, Alice. In the meantime, Henry's outnumbered army prepares to fight in Agincourt on the night before the battle, Henry disguises himself and walks among his troops. He debates with three soldiers, prays for success. Rises with the sun and delivers his famous rallying cry. The battle is fought fiercely and won with great losses to the French and English soldiers lesser than thirty.

With contempt, the Welsh captain, Fluellen forces the braggart Pistol to eat a leek for humiliating the Welsh. At a final meeting in the palace of the French King, peace is restored. In his attractive gaucherie Henry, proposes to Princess Katherene and she accepts him.

Chorus who set the scene on five occasions, presently is there to end the play. ‘Oh for a Muse of fire’ cries Chorus in the most resounding opening to any chronicle. It is possible that Shakespeare may have been Chorus though some scholars say it was Falstaff all the way that he way.

In performance

At the Globe, Southark, the plan of Chorus was a plan of utterance throughout and was principally derived from Holinshed. There was a failure to show the fury of the French wars.

But they fired the imagination of the audience. Some modern critics would have undervalued it as an exercise in chauvinism but then heroism was the theme and Henry the hero. When he is speaking on the morning of Crispin's day in the theatre, before Agincourt, the piece has unerring power.

It is the same at the moment of quieter emotion and the reading of the casualty list after the battle. But Henry is strong in character and he has to act like a monarch and not shed tears. Henry will come unto us unfashionable though it may be as his old advisory Horspur did.

There have been a mix-up in dates as to performances until 1735. In a bad text, John Philip Kemble was Henry from 1789 to 1811 at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. However, in 1839, he sustained the spirit and in the last year at Covent Garden added spectacular effects.

After Phelps at Sadler's Wells in 1852 and Charles Kean at Princess's in 1859, with his prolific pageantry the major performance was by Frank Benson at Stratford. Many directors opted to stage their versions with commission of certain characters as well as texts.

Chorus was often a victim. Lewis Weller, an eloquent paladin, used to downstage for the Crispin crescendo.

Ralf Richardson at the Old Vic in 1931 and Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in 1937 chiselled the way at the dead wood tradition. There was also the valian Robert Atkins directing his version under hard white lights.

During his experimental season in 1936. Ivor Novello dis Shakespeare proud at Drury Lane. After the war, Alex Clunes at the Old Vic in 1951 in Glen Byam Shaw's production, banged Henry over an assault course of rhetoric.

Alan Howard at Stratford in 1975 thought his way into the part, rekindled it more than had been removed and taken for granted. Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in 1984 led to his later translation film.

Michael Bogdanov directed Michael Pennington in the inaugural production for the Old Vic in 1986.

The very popular Christopher Plummer played Henry at Stratford, Ontario in 1956. Edinborough Festival had the play in 1957 with the French parts played by French Canadians, Barry Kyle directed a spectacular revival at the Theatre for a New Audience in New York in 1993.

Henry V was also made into a film and was the first of Laurence Oliviet's three Shakespeare films. The score was composed by William Walton.

Olivier apart from producing, directed and acted as well. It had a valuable caste with Lesli Banks playing Chorus and George Robey the dying Falstaff. Though the film was fabulous and suited the temper of time, it was not much of a success and less uncompromising than its stage version at the Old Vic in 1937.

George Robey was a gallant Elizabethan and among other things down the years he has been Clio. The Muse of History, an Elizabethan youth, an actor in a duffle coat and the semblance of Shakespeare himself. He is no longer sonorous.

Featuring a fine array of British talent that included Derek Jacobs, Brian Blessed, Ian Holm, Paul Schofield and Emma Thompson, Keneth Branagh chose Henry V as his first film direction. He himself acted as Henry V.

Drama-wise Phil Wilmott's play The wax king adopted from Shakespeare's histories, predominantly Henry V and first performed at the Man in the Moon theatre, London in 1992. BBC televised it in 1979 with David Gwillim as Henry.

 

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