After a modern-dress Richard II we now have a post-medieval Henry IV in the RSC's diverse, multi-directional history-cycle. But Michael Attenborough's decision seems entirely right. This is a play not only rooted in its period but one which offers an extraordinary dual perspective: it both looks back to Bolingbroke's sin of usurpation and forward to Hal's rejection of Falstaff and growth into kingship.
The main link with Pimlott's Richard II lies in David Troughton's dazzlingly pivotal performance. A dominant Bolingbroke, he now turns into a guilt-wracked Henry IV, ever-conscious that he seized the throne by force. Yet, although first seen at prayer in penitent's gown, Troughton's king is still a brutal pragmatist who seeks to pre-empt rebellion by squashing his fractious nobles.
Troughton also gives us the anxious father aware that he is in danger of losing his son to the taverns and the fat knight: there's a great moment when his path crosses that of Falstaff in battle and he shoots him a wounded look. But it is Troughton's magnificent verse-speaking that makes this the key performance so far of the Stratford Histories.
Desmond Barrit's Falstaff is also impressive: less the jovial wit-cracker than a Christ-figure wreathed in silvery pathos who knows, from the silence that greets his pleas not to be banished, that rejection is his fate. William Houston's watchful, meditative Hal confirms the impression that he is simply biding his time in the Eastcheap taverns. And there is a dynamic Hotspur from Adam Levy who, in his evocation of the tyrannical Richard II as "that sweet lovely rose", reminds us of how military heroes re-write history.
Es Devlin's design, with its mound of smoke-filled peat, effectively embodies the idea that "the land is burning" and, even if the battle-scenes look a bit cramped in the Swan, this is a fine production that conveys Shakespeare's unparalleled ability to see history from multiple perspectives. Roll on, Part II.
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***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
