First transmitted 2nd January 1983
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Brian Deacon, Bernard Hill, Mark Wing-Davey, David Daker and Paul Chapman choose their favourite flowers. It won't end well. |
Director: Jane Howell
Well cards on the table – I have seen these Henry VI films before. In fact I’ve seen
them a couple of times: I even owned them before I purchased this boxset. So I’ve
got to say I was already of the opinion that these were some of the finest
adaptations of Shakespeare I’ve seen done for television: and re-watching this
first episode in the cycle, I’ve not changed my mind. If anything, having seen
quite a few of the other films in the cycle, I’m even more impressed with the imagination
with which this has been made.
Part of the interest in watching this series has been seeing
the slow movement away from the failures of realism towards a more
impressionistic style, often more reminiscent of theatre rather than reality. This
movement reaches its peak in this second cycle of history plays. I think it’s
often fair to say that this is triumphant, because this second cycle of history
plays (covering the “minor Henriad” and Richard III) is the most enjoyable,
accomplished and impressive production so far, the first to completely
successfully marry the joy of live theatre performance with the technical
advantages of television to create an experience that could not exist if did
not use elements from both.
Most obviously no attempt is made at all to set this play in
a real location. Instead the setting is a multi-coloured wooden set, looking
rather like an adventure playground, with a raised cyclorama platform and a
number of doors and exits around a large courtyard which, with some minor changes,
shifts and alters into a variety of different locations but where no attempt is
made to suggest that any of them are “real places”, as there were with interior
sets in previous history plays. The brightly coloured setting, and the high
octane running around and energetic nature of many of the performances is used
to brilliantly suggest that this feud between Dukes and Earls is no more than
children squabbling over who shall go next on the swings.
Within this setting, the director Jane Howell also chose to
avoid the normal televisual convention of one actor for each part. Instead a
company of around 30 actors take on all the speaking parts of the cycle, with
several taking on multiple roles within this production. What is particularly
effective is the intelligent doubling, with actors taking on roles that contrast
and comment upon each other. So here we have Bernard Hill playing both York,
the man destined to blow the kingdom apart, and the Master Gunner who literally
blows up a group of English generals. Joseph O’Conor plays two very different father
figures whose advice is rejected by Henry and Joan. Derek Farr’s heroic
Salisbury is reincarnated as an honourable but weak Sir William Lucy. This also
reflects over multiple productions: Ron Cook, later to play Richard III,
appears as a messenger bearing news of doom in France and a hunchbacked porter
to the Countess. On top of this the company all do double time as various
lords, mourners, courtiers, servants and soldiers in the myriad crowd scenes
that fill this production, mixing with an over 20-strong “second ensemble” of
extras who play the various French and English soldiers throughout. It’s a
brilliant added delight, particularly as each actor so skilfully presents their
performances that each character stands alone: Tenniel Evans, in particular,
seems markedly different in each of the three roles he plays.
Howell’s direction of Part
One uses the high energy of these performers to suggest that this play is
positioned at the opening of one long descent into chaos and violence. Notably
the first half is surprisingly light and playful, despite the huge numbers of
battles. After the opening funeral scene the stage is brightly lit and the
costuming chosen is a series of bright primary colours. The battles are
represented throughout as almost keystone cops affairs, with actors – their faces
plastered with childlike grins – run through doors and up ramps, waving swords
and whooping with joy: as if war was all one big game. Which it’s easy to feel
like it is within Shakespeare’s play, with the constant fast exchange of French
cities, swopping sides as quickly as weathervanes in a strong wind. Even the
clashes at courts between gangs of rival factions seem more like playground
wrestling matches rather than events where actual killing and murder are not
far off.
All this changes in the second half of the production, which
is notably much darker visually, with the consequences of these wars starting
to become more noticeable. Whereas battles in the first half were largely
single take affairs, with crowds of extras running back and forth like balls at
a tennis match, these later battles start to witness the cost of war. We see
our first lifeless bodies of ordinary soldiers at the start of the act. By the fall
of Talbot’s army, the battle is a series of quick cuts each showing some act of
violence – bodies stabbed, throats slit, knives plunged into necks – and the pauses
in the battle see the stage littered by bloodied dead bodies, with eyes staring
sightlessly upwards. Howell’s point
being that this age of chivalry, of war being a great adventure, cannot last in
a world where ambition and greed encourages men to be ruthless and uncaring for
others. As men like York and Somerset take charge of the kingdom, it means the
days of honourable adventurers like Talbot are numbered.
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| A montage of some of the violent images towards the end of the play |
However, Howell also allows a lot of comedy to sit alongside
this more serious intent: tellingly this production is far more amusing than
any of the comedies made so far in this series. Comic imagery is used
throughout to puncture the pretentions of the lords: a feuding Gloucester and
Beaufort meet on hobbyhorse back, miming out the actions of riding on
horseback, waving their swords at each other (this is also a tour-de-force of
physical acting by Burke and Middlemass). The French lords are a collection of
comic grotesques, alternately cowardly and argumentative (Michael Byrne stands
out as a hilariously camp and prissy Alencon). Antony Brown’s uptight and
cultured Burgundy finds himself totally out of place among the forthright
English, at one point weakly forced to explain a joke to a bewildered Talbot
(in a nice touch in the same scene he sits on a stool while all the English lounge
on the floor, drinking from a glass while other swig from flasks). The countess’
attempt to capture Talbot ends in a comic tableaux of swords pointed at the
defeated gentlewoman.
This sits beside a great deal of theatrical invention. Those
who believe that “filmic technique” is largely a question of alternate head
shots and edits rather than camera movements have claimed this is too close to
a play. Far from it: Howell’s camera is a roving part of the action, moving in
and out of scuffles and tracking key moments. In the courtroom scene of A3 S1,
it moves in and among the lords of England, first during the court gathering and
then through the manic action as rival factions of Gloucester and Beaufort
fight each other in the courtroom. Tableaux are used effectively as well: before
his final confrontation, Talbot’s soldiers form themselves into a defensive
pyramid of swords with Talbot at the centre. Fast editing is used sparingly but
effectively. Scene transitions are also very cleverly done: after meeting with
Mortimer, York turns and charges through double doors – to emerge at the
English court and in the next scene (Bernard Hill even allows a look of
surprise to cross his face, another nice moment of both comedy and fourth wall
breaking).
The main effect used for the camera is to use it as an
active character and confessional for the actors. As in Howell’s Winter’s Tale production, actors
frequently turn and address the camera to deliver their inner thoughts. What’s particularly
imaginative about this, as in the previous production, is that this isn’t just
used at obvious moments – speeches and asides – but that characters also use it
in dialogues with other characters, and at select moments in larger speeches.
It seems to work against the “rules” of film, but actually succeeds brilliantly
as a bridge between theatre and film, acknowledging the viewer, but keeping us
still at a distance. It also allows plenty of additional moments of comedy –
particularly in duologues, as one character address the camera while the other
stares at them, either confused or annoyed at the indiscretions. This is
brought to its height in A5 S2 where Suffolk and Margaret meet for the first
time and alternate in their addresses to the camera, moving all the time around
each other (at one point side-by-side directing their dialogue into the camera)
in a sequence that is both theatrical and filmic.
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| A range of some of the different camera addresses used in the production |
Within such a parade of ensemble acting, all of the very
highest standard (there is not a weak link in the cast), there are in this play
a few key roles. Brenda Blethyn makes her sole appearance in the trilogy here
as Joan of Arc, here imagined as a flirtatious, playful tomboy, a determined
chancer who seems to only just be hiding her annoyance and satirical disdain
for the French lords around her. Bouncing around with energy, waving her sword
and easily besting English soldiers, she’s overflowing with confidence and
certainty. Blethyn then contrasts this extremely well with the broken and
terrified figure she becomes when “her spirits” abandon her late in the play
and she finds herself sentenced to death. From arrogantly rejecting her lowly
father, she moves to desperately pleading for mercy from the fire, her frantic
cobweb of lies eventually exploding into contempt and fury when the sentence is
not revoked. It’s a performance that packs in a great deal of fun and delight,
mixed with serious emotion.
For the English, the leading character is Trevor Peacock’s
Talbot: a blunt, straightforward soldier, honourable and plain-speaking who
appears as a relic of an earlier age, a hangover from the age of chivalry under
Henry V. A natural leader of men, he is at ease with the lords of England and
adored by the soldiers. Peacock also
gives Talbot a certain modesty, a man who sees himself as merely the figurehead
of English soldiery. What he also makes clear is that Talbot is a less than successful
political and military strategist, someone who seems incapable of appreciating
all the implications of a situation or of foreseeing possible outcomes. Instead
he’s a simple man, with easy loyalties and open hearted. His affection for his
son is warm and real, and his concern for him – and his pain when he falls in
battle – comes from a genuine concern. His death here is also the death of honour
in this world – reflected in the bloody imagery that sees so many soldiers die
with him.
There are several other strong individual performances I’ve
yet to mention. David Burke’s Gloucester is a decent, upright but proud figure,
convinced of his moral certainty. His reactions to other characters and events
(the sniggers he shares with Exeter in A5 S4 as conversation turns to Margaret are
a perfect example of this) always ring true and are a frequent background
delight. Frank Middlemass’ Cardinal Beaufort is openly venal, selfish and
corrupt. David Daker (with two sizeable roles) draws sharp differences between
the cold and proud Reignier and the loyal but aggressive Vernon. But the truth
is all the cast shine at different moments in the production, and there is
truly not a weak player in the ensemble.
This is sharply intelligent drama, expertly filmed and
packed with wonderful moments of drama, comedy and imagination. It’s the sort
of production that makes sitting through the weaker productions in the cannon
worthwhile: and a testament to the project that it allows the minor plays like
this to be brought so vividly to life.
Conclusion
Probably the best film so far in the series, directed with
verve, embracing both the televisual and the theatrical. Thematically it creates
a world that is just starting to change, with chivalry and honour beginning to
give way to greed and chaos. The non-realist setting works brilliantly,
avoiding the insummountable challenges of realistic filming (it would probably
require a budget in the hundreds of millions) and makes the economies of scale
and restrictions of television work to its advantage rather than against it.
Similarly the decision to use an ensemble cast, to share so many roles out in
an intelligent and well thought out manner, also works brilliantly. With a
director on top form and not a single weak performance in the cast, this is the
sort of production which, if it had been a theatrical performance, would be
remembered as one of the landmark productions of this play. Best so far.
NEXT TIME: More
Henry VI to come, this time with Trevor Peacock returning to wreak chaos as Jack
Cade in Henry VI Part Two.
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