- #KING HENRY IV PART 1 ANALYSIS HOW TO#
- #KING HENRY IV PART 1 ANALYSIS FULL#
- #KING HENRY IV PART 1 ANALYSIS TV#
It’s one of the play’s best scenes and Eyre, Beale, and Hiddleston execute it phenomenally. When news comes of the Northern rebellion, and Hal must face his father the following day, Hal and Falstaff enact a play extempore of the anticipated morning’s events, trading parts as Henry IV and Hal, to much applause.
#KING HENRY IV PART 1 ANALYSIS HOW TO#
He basks in the attention, but he also learns how to earn it by charming and entertaining the crowd. Courtesy of Joss Barratt © Neal Street Productions.Īt home, Hal is merely a prince, the bane of his father’s existence, but at the Boar’s Head, he is already king of the tavern. Hotspur in The Hollow Crown: “Henry IV Part 1”. Hal gets the fatherly affection he needs from Falstaff, but without the threat of judgment because both are ever conscious of Hal’s elevated social status. Beale has an ease with the language: it’s spontaneous, clever, and still poetic. But Beale also masterfully plays Falstaff’s less likable attributes, showing us the calculating thief who hopes to use his friendship with the prince to his advantage and the desperate old man who fears the day when Hal will cast him aside.
#KING HENRY IV PART 1 ANALYSIS FULL#
Falstaff, on the other hand, whom Hal will later call in jest, “that villainous abominable, misleader of youth”, is full of warmth, with a quick wit and easy charm: he’s the life of the party, and at Falstaff’s side, so is Hal. He even idly wishes that Harry Percy - the valiant but rash and inarticulate Hotspur who will ironically lead the Northern rebellion against Henry IV - were his son, instead. He’s too consumed with his own troubles to act the loving father. He feels nothing but disappointment towards Hal. Henry IV is all seriousness, now comfortable on the throne despite a tumultuous reign. When Hal eventually starts to distance himself from Falstaff, it’s when he is leading the army with his father on a battlefield, in his father’s world we see Falstaff’s desperate attempts here to fit in and stay relevant by trying to maintain their banter. Bardolph, and even Doll Tearsheet ( Maxine Peake) - who doesn’t appear in the text until Part 2 - as staples in this world. The Boar’s Head is always full of people, and we get used to seeing Mistress Quickly (Julie Walters). Henry IV is always bundled up in furs at the icy cold, brightly lit, and spacious court. Falstaff only ever appears in the world of the tavern, warmly lit in reds and yellows. Courtesy of Joss Barratt © Neal Street Productions.Įverything is shot on location: the final battle of Shrewsbury is even more dramatic because it’s filmed on location in the dead of winter. The sets, which each represent the domain of a character, help establish their differences, particularly between Hal’s father, King Henry IV (a commanding Jeremy Irons) and Hal’s father figure, Falstaff (Simon Russell Beale). Jeremy Irons as Henry IV in The Hollow Crown: “Henry IV” Part 1″. We learn quickly that there’s an easy intimacy between Hal and Falstaff when Hal boldly walks up to Falstaff’s room without invitation, wakes him from a sleep, and entices him to plan the next purse-taking adventure. We first meet Prince Hal (a perfect Tom Hiddleston) as he makes his way through London’s Eastcheap neighbourhood toward the Boar’s Head tavern to see his friend, the drunken thief Sir John Falstaff (the amazing Simon Russell Beale). The only real sacrifice is that Falstaff and Hal’s banter is briefer. When “Henry IV Part 1” begins, a few years have passed since “Richard II” (Dir: Rupert Goold), which provided the backstory. The result is not only Shakespeare done brilliantly, but brilliant television.Īdaptor-Director Richard Eyre - a veteran of both theatre and film - condensed Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2 into a gripping four hours of television without losing any of the nuances in the characters and their relationships. Collected together onscreen with the same cast throughout, these three plays are structurally like what we have come to expect from a miniseries: “Henry IV Part 1” has four main characters - Falstaff, Hal, Henry IV, and Hotspur - each so complex that the play has been performed throughout history with each of them at its centre. He grows and changes from the rebellious prince who spent his time drinking and whoring with London’s lowlifes into the great King Henry V throughout three plays: “Henry IV Part 1″, “Henry IV Part 2” (Dir: Richard Eyre), and “ Henry V” (Dir: Thea Sharrock). Shakespeare wrote more lines for Prince Hal than any other character. Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal in “The Hollow Crown: Henry IV Part 1” Courtesy of Nick Briggs © Neal Street Productions.
#KING HENRY IV PART 1 ANALYSIS TV#
Adaptor-Director Richard Eyre has condensed Henry IV Part 1 and 2 into a gripping four hours of TV without losing any of the nuances.