Scheming megalomania is order of the day here, and the pair pull it off with great aplomb. The king never descends into uncomplicated cowardice instead, he is a peace-lover, a compromiser, a man woefully out of step with the spirit of his age.Ĭredit, though, goes to the entire cast, and particularly to Sophie Okonedo and Ben Miles as Queen Margaret and Somerset, the adulterous duo whose designs on the throne pose constant threat to Henry’s kingship. His Henry is a man too sensitive to be a monarch, but charismatic enough to prove a compelling lead. Tom Sturridge is near-perfect in the title role. If it’s not carefully managed, the whole play can feel like a confused mesh of intrigue and treachery, with an insipid king at its heart. Meanwhile, abroad, the French are mounting a campaign to reclaim their conquered homeland. At home, he is set upon by conspiring lords by the insurrectionary Richard on one side, and by the underhand Somerset on the other. Henry is a character unable to bend action to his will. To reach the heights of Richard III, first you must traverse the lowlands of Henry VI, Part I, or so the story goes.īut in Power’s capable hands, Henry VI, Part I, is pared down its looser material hewed off, and its essential drama brought to the fore. It ends with one of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays but begins with one of his most maligned. This time around, writer Ben Power and director Dominic Cook take on the bard’s first history tetralogy, a series dealing with the devastation that the War of the Roses wrought on court and country. This spring, to coincide with Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, The Hollow Crown returns to our screens. A skilful adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henriad, with a cast list that reads like a who’s who of British acting talent ( Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons and Ben Whishaw in the lead roles), we were hooked. If you didn’t spend the warmer months glued to televised athletics, there’s a good chance that you caught The Hollow Crown, part of the BBC’s so-called Cultural Olympiad.
Cast your mind back to 2012, to the sweltering heat of the Olympic summer.
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