Henry V – Royal and Derngate, Northampton

Writer: William Shakespeare

Director: Holly Race Roughan

“Busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels”. These are the words of the dying Henry IV to his son, words that we hear in this production as a replacement for the usual familiar prologue. In other words, if people get restless, keep them occupied by picking arguments with foreigners. It may be 400 years since the play was written, and over 600 years since the events portrayed, but the approach to government has varied little from that time to this, as this relevant and modern take on the play shows.

This is a view of Henry V that you don’t encounter every day, an approach that gives the King a far more complex and nuanced character than is usually portrayed. The traditional gung-ho characterisation, the man who will jump to his feet and deliver a rousing speech to quell any unease, has all but disappeared. The ‘Party Prince’ character depicted in the Henry IV plays seems to have been jolted into reality on his elevation to the throne, burdened with the weight of what he’s undertaking – not helped by the ghost of his dead father who haunts his doubting moments.

Oliver Johnstone gives an excellent performance in the title role as a man laden with self-doubt and fear. “Stiffen the sinews”, he says, “imitate the action of the tiger”. But these are words delivered not to his reluctant troops but instead to himself, as he tries to summon up his own courage, sat cowering and rocking in the corner. His speech to the Governor of Harfleur warning of the consequences if the town continues to hold out becomes a quietly spoken threat delivered with utter conviction, spoken in a pseudo-friendly tone that brings home the threats of sexual assault and murder even more powerfully. It’s all quite chilling. Yet when the names of the French dead are read out, a point that usually creates a moment of stillness and shock, he and his friends celebrate with cheers and jeers like a bunch of schoolboys who’ve just won a sports trophy.

Johnstone’s portrayal is far from the only thing that adds impact to this production, with good work from the entire company of ten actors. Most striking is Joséphine Callies’ depiction of Katherine – here played as a frightened young woman, defiantly refusing to share a kiss with Henry, knowing that she has no alternative but still unwilling to submit to her fate. It creates a new meaning to the often problematic Act V and gives a play that often falls flat after the climax of Agincourt an impetus almost to the end. Moving Katherine’s English lesson to the end of the play is a stroke of genius – gone is the approach that seems to serve little purpose other than to provide a Shakespearean audience with the opportunity to mock some French people and their bad English; instead it shows us a young woman in total panic, speaking no English and about to be shipped off to London, and desperate to cram in as much knowledge as she can.

There have been some major edits in this pared-back production, with large pieces of dialogue, many characters, and even whole scenes being omitted or moved around, decreasing the usual long running time significantly. It’s a shame, then, that we get an overlong excerpt of Henry IV Part 2 at the beginning, where the scene-setting could have been handled equally well but more slickly, and actually gives a fast-moving production a slow start. Where there’s a lot of relevance to the current political climate to see here too, the somewhat self-indulgent newly-created final scene is a rather blunt instrument, having the desired impact but then losing its way as it carries on a little too long.

Still, a highly recommended and relevant version of a Shakespeare classic.

Runs until: 18 March 2023