"Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!"
"I do. I will."
I'd never seen or read this play before, this English graduate sheepishly admits. There are rather a lot of them, and those pesky academics are pushing to include more and more to the fortyish plays. For the record, I've seen or red fourteen including this one. That said, it's surprising, as ever, how much of this play, a lot of it concerning Falstaff, was familiar.
That gives me a bit of a challenge. When I reviewed Julius Caesar and Richard II I was discussing the production rather than the play, which I already knew. I'll endeavour to keep this review in that same spirit, but I hope you'll forgive me a small digression on my first impressions of the play.
The play continues the theme of kingship from Richard II, with Henry IV, a usurper, plagued by guilt and incipient rebellion. Fascinatingly, there are two pairs of doubles who dominate the play. The dour, guilt-ridden, dutiful, rebellion-plagued Henry is contrasted with the fun-loving, cheerfully cynical but emotionally vulnerable Falstaff, giving Prince Hal two polar opposites as "fathers". Meanwhile, Hal, a dissolute young man who contains greatness within him, and is much cannier than he looks, is contrasted against the brave, honourable but impulsive and not-too-bright Hotspur. We get a lot of foreshadowing that Hal will put away childish things when he starts, er, kinging, and that he will, indeed, on that day, banish plump Jack and banish all the world. Hotspur, in getting himself and a lot of people pointlessly killed, illustrates, I suppose, that Hal's strategy, if we can call it, of making himself seem to be a bit of a waster so he can surprise everyone, is a good idea. Although robbery is perhaps pushing it a bit far.
Underlying this is a sense that something is rotten in the state of England; Henry's speech about rebels at the climax, given his own actions, rings hollow, and it is the rebels, not him, who speak of honour. The only hope lies in the next generation.
Interesting, then, that this more rotten England gets a far grittier and more lived-in mediaeval look than did Richard II, which seemed much more on the High Middle Ages. We get constant contrasts between earthy taverns and a cold, grey, empty, joyless castle which really emphasises, in the use of setting, how this play cuts between two very different worlds, one joyless and rooted in a terrible sin, the other merry but ultimately without honour or values. For all it's japes, and its sack, and its misguided honour, this is an England that has lost its way. It's notable that the final battle is shot mainly in close shots to give a sense of confusion, chaos and claustrophobia. There's bitter snow, and fog clouding everything. The battle is won, but things are not right. This generation has failed, and the throne itself is still in question.
Jeremy Irons is superb as the recast, older, rather depressed Henry IV, who has gained only misery by seizing the throne. Simon Russell Beale, my first Falstaff, made me fall in love with the character and want to see more interpretations. But I suspect it's Tom Hiddleston, Loki himself, who will make the biggest impression over the three plays. There are broad hints of how his character will develop, and I'm looking forward to what happens with his performance. Perhaps it's the battle scene, more even than the play-acting in the tavern, that points the way. This is not Falstaff's world, but Hal belongs.
