Theatre review: Henry VI (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

The Globe's announcement that last winter's Richard II was the start of the complete Henriad cycle being performed on their stages this year was something to get excited about but also came with the inevitable problem for the company: The first tetralogy is full of popular hits but while the second ends on another crowd-pleaser in Richard III, the three Henry VI plays that precede it are a much harder sell. Peter Hall and John Barton's Wars of the Roses trilogy compressed them into two plays, and as it turns out the Globe Ensemble's way around the issue is even more drastic, chopping and changing them into a single three-and-a-half hour epic. In reality, and entirely unsurprisingly, if there is such a thing as a massive fan of Part One they should probably not get their hopes up - the fact that King Henry (Jonathan Broadbent) is already old enough to walk and talk as the play begins should be a clue that the largely unrelated prequel wouldn't figure, and we open with the introduction of the figure who will haunt the whole second tet, his queen Margaret (Steffan Donnelly.)

In the new three-act, two-interval structure, the first act is largely concerned with the ruling House of Lancaster infighting: Margaret's arrival from France comes with major concessions of land, and Humphrey of Gloucester (John Lightbody,) who begins the story as Lord Protector, starts to lose his grip on power.

Suffolk (Nina Bowers) soon follows him, and as the weak Henry attempts to rule in his own right, even the formidable presence of his wife (not-so-secretly acknowledged as the real person in charge) isn't enough to put off the threat of the Duke of York (Colin Hurley,) who's chosen his moment to stake his own claim to the throne. This opening hour is entertaining, although it is comparatively static, dealing with people wandering around in the throne room hatching plots to take each other down. You start to wish for the backstabbing to end and the actual stabbing to start, and the remainder of the evening doesn't disappoint: The production is directed by Ilinca Radulian and Sean Holmes, and after the first interval the latter's signature anti-naturalistic, European-influenced style starts to assert itself.

In Jack Cade's rebellion Cade becomes not so much a person as the name for an Anonymous-style group of masked activists. One of the most famous scenes in the plays, of the factions choosing the flowers that will represent them, is gone: Instead the two sides wear football shirts to show their allegiance, which also means they can display their characters' names at all times; handy when a small cast has to take on so many roles in such a short space of time. Bringing the battle down to the level of football hooligans screaming at each other undercuts any suggestion that this is a noble conflict on either side, but by necessity Shakespeare was playing to a specific party line so York's sons Edward (Sarah Amankwah,) George (Lightbody) and Richard (Sophie Russell) are particularly thuggish, frequently drunk and impulsive - Edward's spur-of-the-moment change of mind about who to make his queen alienates both the French King (Leaphia Darko) and his most loyal ally Warwick (Philip Arditti.)

It'll be interesting, going straight into the same company's Richard III, to see if they follow straight on with the same style or choose to make the production distinct, as so far Russell opts not to make any of Richard's famous disabilities visible. What's always interesting about seeing (at least some version of) these plays before the more famous conclusion is the different point of view we get on the characters: Brandishing a chainsaw, Richard is just the particularly brutal branch of the Yorkist family, whose mistake is not realising that once he's out of external enemies to defeat will turn on his own (in a way that actually makes the story nicely cyclical, as it started with Lancastrian infighting weakening them.) Of course the other thing it illuminates about the next play is why it's so easy for Richard to throw George under a bus, since he's spent most of these plays swapping sides so often it's no big stretch to put him under suspicion of further treason.

Henry VI himself is a man whose inability to rule came from debilitating mental health problems that Shakespeare avoids alluding to, instead making him Too Good For This Cruel World^TM. Broadbent makes him essentially detached from the world around him, and I liked the detail of how Grace Smart's costume design reflects this in his footwear: From the kind of green wellies favoured by the Queen in Balmoral, to pottering about the Tower in comfy slippers, they suggest the story he's in in his head is very different from the bloody one actually unfolding around him. Other witty touches in the costumes include the numbers on Henry, Edward and Richard's football shirts reflecting their regnal numbers.

Michelle Terry's promotion of Holmes to Associate Artistic Director suggests this anarchic style is something she wants to make a feature of her time at the Globe, and on this evidence it's something that works really well tearing up the chocolate-box confines of the Swanamaker. A fun, rowdy and surprisingly clear production, my only real problem is that it ends so late - the theatre should have gone for an earlier 7pm start time, the fact that compressing three (*cough* two *cough*) History Plays into one comes in well over the three hour mark can't have been that much of a surprise.

Henry VI by William Shakespeare is booking in repertory until the 26th of January at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

Running time: 3 hours 20 minutes including two intervals.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.