Guest Post: Henry VI Parts 1-3

Yorkists and Lancastrians square off. Just another Manic Monday.

Well, you've read me bang on about Henry VI so it's about time someone else got in on the act. So I pass the blog torch over to my wife Cate, who had the pleasure (pressure) of watching the whole trilogy with me (start to finish!). So let's here the views of someone who doesn't always share my love for the creaky sets, slow pace and grandstanding acting of the BBC from the 1970s. Over to you Cate!

As a historian, I confess I’m often not a fan of Shakespeare’s history plays – I just can’t detach from the glaring historical errors and view them as fiction, particularly not since Shakespeare’s version has often over-written reality in the general consciousness. As a fervent Ricardian, I have even greater problems with his Wars of the Roses plays – seeing Shakespeare’s Richard of Gloucester gleefully murdering people at a time when the real Richard was a child of eight makes my teeth grind every time.

The Henry plays also have several substantial chunks which I feel could be cut entirely with no great loss to world literature. I get that Jack Cade is terribly thematic, but blimey he’s dull – and do we really need all that French action in Part 1? And – shameless personal prejudice – I’m also much less tolerant of outdated production values than Ali is! So really I ought to have hated these films, but in the end I found a lot to admire. The historical-pedant side of my brain couldn’t be stopped from screaming periodically, but the theatre-nerd part thoroughly enjoyed a lot of the stage-craft.

The slavish literalism of many of the previous films had been almost entirely done away with – no painstakingly constructed interiors or (still worse) trips out to film in a forest here. Intelligently tackling the sweeping nature of the plot, an abstract set was used not only to cover everything from English prison cells to French battlefields, but also to communicate and reflect the deterioration of the realm itself – fading gradually from hopeful primary colours in Part 1 into faded, muddy tones, to finally a bleak monochrome with sooty timbers and blackened armour standing out against a melancholic snowfall. Brilliantly, the costumes evolved in a mirroring fashion through the three plays. Not only did they echo the degeneration in colour palette – fading from the cheery pastels and bold primary tones of medieval illuminations into grim, scruffy tones of black and grey – but the styles evolved as well. 

By the time the saga concluded, the action had passed into the hands of a rougher, more brutal generation, corrupted by (or taking advantage of) the civil war and absence of authority around them: and accordingly, the ornate, brightly coloured and rather cumbersome costumes of the early players had been replaced by dark, brigand-like outfits cobbled together from rough armour, headbands and an awful lot of weaponry, solely designed for maximum effectiveness in a fight. By the middle of Part 3, we hadn’t seen a splash of colour in a long time, and the sudden rush of blues and silvers when the action moves to the French court, or the blood-red of Lancastrian banners at Towton, was a visual jolt.  

The filming too took a leap forward imaginatively. I enjoyed the trick of actors delivering their asides slyly into the camera, making the viewer complicit in their schemes and plots. Still more impressive was the effective use of stylized tableaux and sequences – the outstanding ones for me being Talbot’s last stand and the moment where mirrors were used to create a huge, synchronized, almost mythical-looking army from about three actual actors at Towton. 

The performances, though, were a mixed bag. In the lead roles, I very much enjoyed Peter Benson as the gentle and ineffectual King Henry – he managed to somehow be both hopeless and endearing at the same time. He also had a remarkable gift for making you stop noticing him right in the middle of a scene, fading away to the background while your attention was caught by more strident characters. It was a generous performance, as well as an accomplished one, allowing others to constantly seize the centre stage. On the other hand, from her first entrance I loathed Julia Foster as Queen Margaret – strident, grating and stroppy, she lacked the range to tackle either the romantic Suffolk scenes or her early subtler manipulation of Henry. In her hands, Margaret was a bully and a scold, without vulnerability, guile or complexity. All of this was particularly frustrating since Margaret is one of Shakespeare’s best roles for women – there are enough plays out there where women only get to play one or two emotions, to see a multi-faceted role like this reduced to a one-note caricature was painful.

Elsewhere in the cast, it was a similar story. While Bernard Hill made a charismatic and watchable York, and Brian Protheroe was good as a shallow Edward of March, Mark Wing-Davey failed to summon the inflated pride that would make Warwick pivot on a sixpence over nothing more than a thwarted marriage alliance and suddenly swear allegiance to the woman he’d spent the last 11 hours of drama fighting, and Ron Cook as Richard of Gloucester failed to convince as a villain who could smile, and murder while he smiled. But perhaps I’m being unfair on that last one. Like I said at the beginning, I’m never going to love Shakespeare’s most enduring piece of character assassination.

And with that, I’ll conclude my guest appearance on the blog!

Henry VI Part 3 (Series 5 Episode 5)

First transmitted 16th January 1983

The York faction celebrate (but it's short lived) as Henry VI enters its third part

Cast: John Benfield (Northumberland/Hunstman), Peter Benson (Henry VI), Antony Brown (King Lewis/Sir John Montgomery/Lieutenant of the Towe), Michael Byrne (Montague/Father That Kills His Son), Paul Chapman (Rivers), Ron Cook (Richard of Gloucester), Rowena Cooper (Queen Elizabeth), Arthur Cox (Somerset/Sir John Mortimer), David Daker (Hastings), Brian Deacon (Oxford), Tenniel Evans (Messenger/Keeper/First Watchman/Sir William Stanley), Derek Farr (Exeter/Mayor of York/Rutland’s Tutor/Second Watchman), Julia Foster (Queen Margaret), Derek Fuke (Westmoreland/Post/Third Watchman), Alex Guard (Son That Kills His Father/Dorset), Bernard Hill (York), Paul Jesson (George of Clarence), Melinda Kendall (Lady Bona), Oengus MacNamara (Young Clifford/Messenger), Brian Protheroe (Edward IV), Nick Reding (Prince Edward), Mark Wing-Davey (Warwick), Peter Wyatt (Norfolk/Second Keeper)

Director: Jane Howell

Well it’s been quite a journey – and quite a pleasure! I loved seeing these productions years ago, and it’s been great to sit down and enjoy all 13 hours (count ‘em!) again this time. So let me say it again – this is a major artistic achievement, and if these productions had been delivered on stage rather than through the box, they would have been talked about as landmarks. The best news is Richard III is still to come. I should probably also name-check at this moment my wife Cate, who succumbed to my pleading to watch this trilogy with me. Perhaps because I ran out of superlatives, you can hear what she thought of the whole thing in her Guest blog post here!

Needless to say this is another excellent episode in this ongoing drama of a country folk tearing each other apart. After the calmer pace of the Part Two, this returns to the frentic style with each battle (of which there are many) rolling inexorably into the next. The difference from the first half – which now seems a bit of jolly hockeysticks compared to the slaughter here – is this play drips with blood, violence and sadism and the humour is pitch black. It’s enough to make you wonder how nihilistic the final part of this series, Richard III, is going to be – particularly knowing that will see the demise of nearly all the characters left alive at the conclusion of this one.

It’s that grim “butcher’s toll” that really keeps this play moving. Stylistic echoes of death stretch throughout the plays. How many times now have we seen a leading character, his body broken, slumped and looking up at the camera, reflecting on the futility of war? Just as Talbot in Part One and Cade in Part Two, so York, Clifford (a great performance of menace and blind hatred from Oengus MacNamara) and Warwick here, their blooded bodies a witness to the emptiness of the cause that has consumed them. York in particular finally signs off on his long campaign for the crown, hunted, assaulted, mocked and lynched in an extended scene of humiliation and pain. And those are only the most prominent of the deaths here, as extras aplenty meet graphic and brutal ends.

Contrasts with the previous chapters of the trilogy are used throughout to heighten the sense of violence. Where Part Two begins with a ceremonial entrance into the court, Part Three opens with the same courtroom, but this time with Yorkist axes caving the door in. Similarly, while the first shot of Part One is a state funeral, here the camera pans over a series of mangled bodies from the Battle of St Albans. The fast pace of Part One is replicated throughout the second part of the play, this time with a far darker mood and atmosphere. There are also interesting stylistic flourishes in the play around the number three and framing of groups of three: most clearly of course in the three sons of York, artfully arranged to watch the rising of three sons, but echoed as well in the framing of Warwick, Margaret and Edward in A3 S5, and several other characters throughout – which is both a nice in joke, but also a comment on the uneasy alliances at the heart of this play. There is also a welcome return of the “straight to camera address” here used with dark effect, as characters appeal to the camera for sympathy, relief or to let off steam – only Richard tips the odd sly wink (though not as many as you would think!).

The battle scenes have increased in scale. All attempts to distinguish between the sides have been largely abandoned, everyone instead consumed in some hellish melee. The costumes are now so similar, that each side blends into each other in a series of brutal skirmishes, with camera angles switching from wide angles to tight angles (to capture the violence), and frequent use of slow-mo and reduced sound to accentuate each blow being delivered. Two battles stand out in particular. In A2 S2 at the Battle of Towton, mirrors create seemingly never ending rows of soldiers moving towards each other, ranks of impersonal figures moving in sequence. In A5 S5 an apocalyptic Battle of Tewkesbury takes place in the snow, like a destructive ash spread over the combatants. What works particularly well here is the build-up to this battle, as a battered Lancastrian army assembles – the faces of every character clearly shows they know they can’t win, with Margaret’s pep talk doing little more than stir their courage – and the off-camera sound of the approach of the Yorkist sounds like some medieval WMD, about to wipe the Lancastrians off the face of the earth.

All this of course takes place within a darkened, faded and extremely damaged set, now only a distant relative of the bright and colourful location of Part One. Doors are rotten and stained with fire. All colour has disappeared from the wood. Fabrics and clothes are darkened and militaristic – Warwick and York still wear the same armour as in Part One but the colours have decayed and faded beyond recognition. The contrast is really noticed when the French characters appear in A3 S3, still in their blues and brightness – even their slightly camp attitude and demeanour – which really causes them to stand out from the increasingly serious and grim English characters. It’s an explosion of everything that has been building throughout the previous plays.

We now live in a world where it is everyman for himself, and factions promote their own interests with no interest in the realm at large. Howell constantly frames the various factions, and factions within factions, together – a series of confrontational group line-ups, facing down all attempts at reason and negotiation. The characters are all totally unprincipled about alliances for fortune – Oxford and Margaret may meet Warwick coldly on his defection, but they are have no doubts about working with him. Paul Jesson’s excellent performance as Clarence as a naked opportunist and mercenary, rolling from alliance to alliance with no sense of loyalty or affection for others is in many ways an even better expression of this, than Ron Cook’s disillusioned and angry Richard. No wonder they are all so ruthless – Margaret’s cruel taunting and near lynching of York (Bernard Hill bowing out on a real high with a performance of arrogance and ruthlessness collapsing into furious, emotional defiance), is just one of several brutal ends – among them Clifford and Warwick.

Both these deaths pale however against the brutal murder of Prince Edward, whose stabbing is so shocking and cruel (and the reaction of Margaret so pained) that the assembled Yorkist lords seem hardly able to watch. Edward in particular seems appalled that he has behaved so violently – so clearly against his self-image as the “Good King”, while Hastings and the Grey family are shocked into horrified silence (Hastings even crouching impotently behind a grieving Margaret). This is particularly striking as Prince Edward himself is portrayed as fearful but bravely facing his end. The stark single shot here – and the framing of the violence against the snow white background – lend a real emotional force and bleakness to this final brutal murder that will secure Edward’s throne – and seems to lay the emotional groundwork for the nightmare that will be Richard III - it’s easy to see why this one murder will resonate so strongly within that play - particularly as it is so rarely seen in the context of the three previous plays.

The final slaughter is the murder of Henry VI himself, who meets his end in a darkened room in the tower. Benson’s soft spoken Henry is as gloriously ineffectual here, as he has been throughout the trilogy, from weakly confronting York in A1 S1 (and actually trying to run away rather than confront Margaret) to walking shell shocked across Towton in A2 S5, listening with a heartbroken tenderness to the Father and the Son, utterly unable to understand or comprehend man’s violence, a wistful sadness as he sees the dead around him – the same emotions he will display in A4 S6 when talking with Exeter, a complete lack of comprehension about why he is not loved and respected as a king. By contrast, in his final moments he displays more strength of purpose and defiance than he has in the rest of his life. The scene itself uses some subtle Christian imagery – light cast on bars to form a cross, bread and wine on the table where Henry sits – although the final crucifixation pose of Henry himself is less subtle.

Most of the action of Part Three is increasingly driven by Richard of Gloucester, here representing the embodiment of a “new world order” of violence and deceit. Ron Cook’s performance is perhaps most notable because it is delivered in a very low-key style, a bitter man, who has spent a lifetime being demeaned and insulted by those around him. This is clear in A5 S5, where in his murder of Henry he seems at least as motivated by the insults and “home truths” Henry gives him, culminating in a frenzied stabbing and a bitter mission statement of future villainy. Aside from this moment, it’s his calm intelligence that really stands out, mixed in with a genuine sense of melancholy and even depression in his major speech in A3 S2. Cook’s Richard cannot gain pleasure from anything: it is suggested his idolisation of his father is his one tether to the real world (he cuddles up to him like a baby in A1 S3) – once that is gone, everything is open season.

If Richard is the new world, then Warwick is the old world. Mark Wing-Davey comes into his own in this Part, as the last man standing of the major lords introduced in Part One. What is particularly effectively in his performance is the sense that Warwick himself is deliberately altering and adjusting his personality to fit his new self-perception as an elder statesman. He is noticeably calmer and cooler, his pride and ambition now clearly central parts of his personality – his fury in A3 S3 is all based around his intense anger at being humiliated by Edward. With the death of York, Warwick’s primary aim – and you can see it in the framing and body language in A2 S1 – is to establish himself as the true leader of the Yorkist faction (helped by the fact that he treats Edward and George like children – they even literally sit at his feet to hear his instruction on what they should do next). He may have an emotional core – as seen in his reaction to the death of his father in A2 S3 and his pain at York’s loss – but it is pride that drives him on here and leads to the destructive Acts 4 and 5 of the play. It’s a subtle and effective way of making Warwick both an antagonist and a protagonist.

By contrast Brian Protheroe’s Edward is far more of a playboy figure, a man elevated into a leadership role but clearly unsuited to it, lacking any moral authority. After the death of York, he seems lost – flinging himself into Warwick’s arms like a child – seating himself subseviently at Warwick’s feet, practically asking to be told what to do. Later, when faced with defections in response to his marriage, he seems like a horny, stroppy teenager. What balances this really well though is the flashes of self-doubt and fear – before battles, when facing Warwick – that subtly suggest a man out of his depth. The importance to him of his self-image is clear in the aftermath of Prince Edward’s murder, where he seems barely able to believe he has committed the crime – let alone actually look at the consequences of his actions.

The one performer in the cycle that I have struggled with has been Julia Foster as Margaret. Foster, for me, has often been too one-note, to sharp tongued and hard in tone for her to be really convincing as anything other than the “she-wolf” of France she becomes in this play (it hardly seems much of a journey since she is a pretty harsh person from day one). So this Part does at least play more to her strengths – even though it effectively means that she hits the same notes she had been delivering in Parts One and Two, just even harder (her mocking of York is only a few degrees harsher than her mocking of Gloucester in Part Two). 

The point where she really nails it though – and it may be because she changes the pace rather than her performance – is Act 5. Her tearful disbelief turning to acceptance of certain defeat in the build-up to the final battle is strangely moving (considering she has expressed no doubt at all in the previous 12 hours of action), as is her desperate attempts to rouse the courage of her men despite her own fear. This then feeds wonderfully into her almost elemental pain at the death of her son, her agony as hard for the viewer to watch as the Yorkists find it. She’s never been, really, the right choice for the part – imagine what Eileen Atkins, Helen Mirren or any other of the wonderful actors in this cycle could have done with the part and its mixture of sensuality and macho aggression – but she makes her best shot at here.

And so that is it for Henry VI! After thirteen hours it’s hard not to feel like breaking out into a celebratory jig, as the triumphant Yorkists do at the end (with a dance sequence inspired by Shakespearean performance, but also stressing their triumphalist relief and their lack of awareness of the destructive force among them). The “trilogy” however continues with Richard III – next up with an uncut four hours of revenge – and the seeds for that have been triumphantly sown here, not only with Richard’s growing anger, but also with the murder of Prince Edward, the development of Margaret and the collapse of any sense of moral force or obligation among the characters. We’ve seen England move from a land where the Royal family rule in the interest of the people to one where our new Royal family are more interested in helping themselves than they are in the people. Compelling material, brilliantly done.

Conclusion

The trilogy comes to a gripping end with a grim parade of battles and violence, as many of the most prominent characters from the previous plays face their end in a bloodbath that makes Game of Thrones look timid. Directorial flourishes are very effectively done, and the acting remains of a very high standard indeed, with Cook, Protheroe, Wing-Davey, Hill and Benson all making strong contributions, while Foster does her best work so far. Some moments here carry an extraordinary power and some sequences are chilling – in particular the murder of Prince Edward. It’s going to be fascinating to see how much of Richard III is repositioned after seeing this – particularly as that murder of Prince Edward is so central to the unedited text. Terrific, terrific stuff – make the effort to see this!

NEXT TIME: No spoilers but it's Ron Cook's time to take the spotlight as Richard III approaches.