REFLECTIONS ON A FAT KNIGHT
Due to train disruption – speak not of overhead wires and wind – I had to bail out at the interval, from Robert Icke’s epic three and a half hour modern-dress combination of Henry IV parts 1 and 2.
But I got my money’s worth, oh yes., Patt I, the least cut down, takes us to the interval in two magnificent straight hours. We reach Hotspur’s desth at Shrewsbury and Falstaff’s faked death, with almost all the favourite Falstaff moments (though I would have liked to see more of Clare Perkins’ Quickly and may have to go to Norwich for that later). But we do see the beginning of young Hal’s journey to becoming – well, to put it in modern terms, more of a William than a Montecito-poloplaying Harry (though heaven knows Meghan is no Falstaff or Quickly).
But I digress. This turns out to be not only what we all, lip-lickingly, expected – a chance to see the tireless Ian McKellen doing Falstaff – but an intelligent, fast-paced modern take. Icke gives us surtitle information about where we are, and – importantly – about the losses in battle: these are khaki troops, Falstaff and all, and there is immense sound and flash of all too familiar battle, though Hal and Hotspur end up close, with knives (and in a departure from custom, Prince Hal’s final blow makes no pretence at chivalry: almost in that moment a rogue alongside Falstaff. The “reaurrection” of the fat knightis brilliantly handled, his desecration of Hotspur’s corpse both repellent and irresistible.
And that is the first moment when I properly felt what McKellen has been talking about: that the beloved Falstaff is in no way lovable, no cosy rogue but a gangster. It ahould be apparent earlier, with his venal abuse of the conscription powers given him by Hal: the only time I have seen that forced-labour of convicts and cripples come to lofe is in Greg Doran’s RSC production when the cannon-fodder victims limped, in silent silhouette, behind Sher’s joshing Falstaff.
But McKellen leaves it longer to repel us. His take on the great speech decrying “honour” is very much his own, too: he means to duck the fighting , of course he will, but makes it a joke and a mockery of those who believe in honour. . Another way to take it is what Roger Allam did at the Globe: his was a Falstaff whose shining quality was that he was cleverer, just thought more than his fiery young friend: he made you feel that he feels the pity of war. This Falstaff just makes you feel what a good chance it is for personal profit. Both being truths, that’s another pleasure of seeing Shakespeare well done.
Toheeb Jimoh’s Hal is good, especially in his moments of tryihng to be, or look, grownup at last. His desire to reform bubbles under the surface even at his wildest: the tavern play-acting of his confrontation with his father is fascinating, as Falstaff takes the mick but then Hal tries on the kingly manner, half-uneasy.
Richard Coyle’s tweedy, impatient King is good too: suits the sense of a selfconsciously heavy father, weighed down by his own past of rough dealing. And of course at the centre always is Ian McKellen: vast-bellied, contemptuous, nearing his end and knowing it but burping noisily into unrepentant old age. Had to see him: he’s lately been Lear and Hamlet and pantomime dames and a sly gay seducer in Frank and Percy, and this Falstaff is a pleasure, a masterclass: every pose and pause immaculate, every unnerving moral question tantalizingy dangled.
Had I not had to flee in disorder to Shenfield and beyond to have any chance of home , I would have stayed rhe last 70 minute sprint to “I know thee not old man “. Probably will, as the tour goes on. It’s a heroic tour: here till 22 June then Bristol, Birmingham, Norwich, Newcastle, many very good prices. Is it not wonderful that one of our premier stars, in his eighties, should be determined to do this for his country?
all boxoffice bookings: playerkingstheplay.co.uk
Can’t ‘star’ it, as lost the final hour.
theatreCat 