Henry IV
by William Shakespeare
I have always been attracted to Shakespeare's history plays. I made my Archway directorial debut in 1992 with a modern dress production of Henry V, and four years ago played the title role in Richard III; but my favourite plays in the cycle are Henry IV Parts I & II. They contain the perfect mix of comedy, tragedy, politics and action, and are populated by a host of wonderful characters. The problem comes with the length - to perform both parts uncut would take nearly eight hours! I decided therefore to produce a "best bits" version and attacked the two plays with the scissors. By focusing on the Percy's rebellion from Part I and streamlining the characters I was able to cut things down to a more manageable length, then by adding some lines from Henry V was able to take the Falstaff story arc to its conclusion. This may seem sacrilegious to some people, but it is not without precedent; Orson Welles did something very similar on stage and screen with "Chimes at Midnight" (this was recently revived at Chichester with Simon Callow playing Falstaff) and there was another production adapted by John Caird for the BBC a few years ago. In my opinion it is better for people to get a taste of the plays in whatever form, than to miss out altogether simply because of the scale of the story.
Having a completed script, the next question was how to set it. There are many schools of thought as to how Shakespeare should be presented. Some people think they should only be performed in Elizabethan costume as they were originally, others favour the modern dress approach. In the “Henry” plays Shakespeare was writing about events as far removed from his time as the Napoleonic Wars are to ours, so to his audience the plays were in modern dress. This would suggest setting the play in a modern context, however these clearly are historical plays... no help there then! Another way is to costume the play in the historical period in which it is set. This too can cause problems because to the modern eye it can be difficult to distinguish the social classes and characters. There is no right or wrong way to "do" Shakespeare. My solution is eclectic; to clothe the characters in historic yet undefinable costumes that seem appropriate to them, therefore giving the play an internal logic without pinning it to a specific time and place and letting the eternal themes speak for themselves.
