Stage-to-screen review: Henry VI Part 1Open Rehearsal Project (RSC)

The Phantom Menace of Shakespeare's Plantagenet history cycle, Henry VI Part 1 is the unloved prequel that seems to exist mainly to cause a headache for companies like the RSC and Globe: There's an expectation that they'll make their way through the entire canon every decade or so, but a couple of the plays feel like a hell of a lot of effort and expense for a show nobody will actually want to come and see. As the least popular part of an extended sequence of plays Henry VI Part 1 suffers the most from this - I've only seen it live in its own right once - and theatres tend to go for some variation of not actually staging it and saying they did. Usually this involves merging it into the other two Henry VI plays, like the Swanamaker's last attempt did particularly ruthlessly, but the RSC chose instead to make a virtue out of necessity and knock this one out as a lockdown project online: Gregory Doran and Owen Horsley directed a professional cast in rehearsals last summer, which were live-streamed for anyone interested in seeing the company's rehearsal process.

Theatre review: Wars of the Roses (RSC / RST)

I'm back in Stratford-upon-Avon for the Empire Strikes Back of Shakespeare's York v Lancaster trilogy: Originally titled Richard, Duke of York, most commonly (and confusingly) known as Henry VI Part 3, the RSC have opted for the blindingly obvious title that both Shakespeare and the First Folio editors managed to miss, Wars of the Roses. Following straight on from Rebellion, the gloves are off and so are any masks hiding who's behind the threats to Henry VI's reign. The Duke of York (Oliver Alvin-Wilson) makes his challenge known, and begins to muster forces, supported by his sons Edward, later Edward IV (Ashley D Gayle,) George (Ben Hall) and Richard (Arthur Hughes.) When the "kingmaker" Warwick (Nicholas Karimi) pledges his allegiance to the Yorkist cause as well, their victory seems assured.

Theatre review: Henry VI: Rebellion (RSC / RST)

After a couple of years kept away from Stratford-upon-Avon by Miss Rona, followed by a further delay caused by Miss Eunice, it is at least apt timing that I should return to the RSC on Shakespeare's birthday. And, leading up to the end of Gregory Doran's tenure there and the conclusion of his staging the Complete Works (some exclusions apply, the amount of plays we say Shakespeare wrote may go down as well as up) that began with Richard II, the inevitable end point was the series of Henry VI plays leading up to Richard III. The play usually known as Henry VI Part 1 is probably Shakespeare's least-loved work and the company must have been dreading having to convince people to come see it, so they used the excuse of lockdown to present it as a streamed rehearsed reading, aka Let's Not Stage It And Say We Did. Which does have the added advantage of being able to skip ahead and present a trilogy of plays that were actually intended as such.

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.)

Stage-to-screen review: Henry VI Part 2 (BBC Hollow Crown)

The cynical side of me thinks that the middle part of the BBC's Wars of the Roses wouldn't have focused quite so squarely on the future Richard III if they hadn't got Banoffee Hydrochloride to play him; but realistically I think Shakespeare's first tetralogy of English Histories is so roundly considered to be unloved that the one character everyone's heard of would probably have been at the center of Ben Power and Dominic Cooke's The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses - Henry VI Part 2, regardless of who they got to strap on the hunchback. In any case, making this mix of Shakespeare's Parts 2 and 3 effectively a prequel to Richard III lends it the closest thing it has to an overall story arc, in an adaptation that doesn't live up to the dramatic impetus Power and Cooke managed last week in Part 1.

Stage-to-screen review: Henry VI Part 1 (BBC Hollow Crown)

After  the BBC's 2012 series The Hollow Crown presented the second (in order of writing) tetralogy of Shakespeare's Histories, there was a general assumption that it would be followed up with the rest of the story as told in the Henry VI plays and Richard III. But response to that quartet was mixed, and the Henry VIs, written earlier in Shakespeare's career, aren't particularly well-loved, and I got the distinct impression the BBC weren't too keen on going there. The occasion of the 4th centenary of the playwright's death and the resulting on-screen festival got them to reconsider - although I can't help suspecting it was the fact that the ever-popular Botulism Nanobot agreed to play Richard III, probably guaranteeing big ratings, that finally got this green-lit. Ben Power has stayed on from the first series as adaptor, but Dominic Cooke has been given directing duties on all three films - a good idea, as the first series wasn't always that cohesive from one part to the next.

Theatre review: Kings of War

Very much in-demand to direct work in English both here and on Broadway, Ivo van Hove is of course also still running Toneelgroep Amsterdam, and bringing over Dutch-language work to a niche - but not quite as niche as it was a couple of years ago - audience. For the weekend of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, I didn't manage to fit in the Globe's film series along the South Bank, but my own way of marking the event is van Hove's 4-and-a-half hour compression of the History Cycle - beginning at the end of Henry IV Part 2 with the death of that king, then following on through Henry V, the Henry VI plays and Richard III - collected as Kings of War. Henry V (Ramsey Nasr) distracts England from his line's dubious claim to the throne with a successful offensive in France, but like the king himself the victory is short-lived: His son takes the crown when less than a year old, and even as an adult Henry VI (Eelco Smits) is plagued by mental illness and unable to control his lords.

Theatre review: Edward IV (The Wars of the Roses at the Rose Theatre, Kingston)

Henry VI's queen, Margaret of Anjou (Joely Richardson,) is a figure who looms over the whole of Shakespeare's second historical tetralogy - or in the case of John Barton's War of the Roses edit, trilogy. In Edward IV, the determination and strength she showed earlier in the sequence starts to reach a level of insanity that'll inform much of the climactic play as well. What kicks it off is a deal her husband (Alex Waldmann) makes in an attempt to pacify his Yorkist rivals: He will remain king to the end of his natural life, but the Duke of York (Alexander Hanson) and his sons will be his heirs. As this disinherits their son Edward (played by Freddy Carter's cheekbones,) Margaret won't stand for it; soon she's leading the charge herself, the treaty's forgotten and the wars are back on, bloodier than ever. York won't live to see the crown himself, but it will pass back and forth between Henry, and York's son Edward IV (Kåre Conradi - for the sake of NUNNSTORICAL ACCURACY the king of England is Norwegian.)

Theatre review: Henry VI (The Wars of the Roses at the Rose Theatre, Kingston)

I don't know why, but I just get the impression that Trevor Nunn favours the white roses.

A Shakespearean epic in Kingston (Jamaica? No, she went of her own accord) as Trevor Nunn looks back at one of the most famous productions from the RSC's history - The Wars of the Roses. John Barton adapted the second tetralogy (first in order of writing) of Shakespeare's Histories into a trilogy, combining the three Henry VI plays into two, and topping off the event with Richard III. Nunn credits Peter Hall's original production with inspiring his own theatrical career, and so revives the sequence as a tribute both to him, and to Barton's editing work. The trilogy has been slightly overshadowed, deservedly, by controversy, as Nunn has deliberately eschewed colour-blind casting, claiming on the one hand that an all-white cast is more historically accurate, and on the other that audiences will find it easier to follow the complex family trees if all members of a family are the same race.

Theatre review: The True Tragedy of the Duke of York (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

One of my unwritten theatre reviewing rules is to provide a summary of the play for people who might be unfamiliar with it. Sometimes that's easier than others, and when it comes to The True Tragedy of the Duke of York things could get very tangled up. Suffice it to say that as we get to the last of the Henry VI plays the Wars of the Roses are in full swing and over the next couple of hours loyalties shift, many die, enough sons lose their fathers to populate an entire season of The X Factor, and Henry himself is deposed not once but twice. The Globe have been keen to point out that the three plays can be enjoyed individually, but there's no preamble at the start of this installment as the cast dive straight into a swordfight left over from last night. Having witnessed the first battle in the War of the Roses, King Henry will try anything to avoid new bloodshed, including disinheriting his own son in favour of York's bloodline. But the rest of the Lancastrians are horrified at his capitulation, and will fight to keep him on the throne he knows himself unsuitable for.

Theatre review: The Houses of York and Lancaster (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

Nick Bagnall's revival of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays continues with The Houses of York and Lancaster (actually the original full title was The First Part of the Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster but the Globe have clearly balanced authenticity with common sense.) Having started to stand up to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in Harry the Sixth, King Henry (Graham Butler) inadvertently opened the door for his enemies to get rid of the Lord Protector once and for all. Humphrey's young wife (Beatriz Romilly) will be his downfall, and when she's caught dabbling in black magic her husband is forced to stand down. Emboldened by his relationship with the new queen, the Duke of Suffolk goes one step too far and has Humphrey killed. Soon he too is dead, and the power vacuum around the weak king leads the Duke of York (Brendan O'Hea) to finally show his hand as a rival contender for England's throne.

Theatre review: Harry the Sixth (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

The play usually referred to as Henry VI Part 1 was written long before Shakespeare's more famous Henry V, but that play's ending haunts Harry the Sixth, the first in the trilogy which Shakespeare's Globe is staging under the plays' original titles. The Chorus of Henry V ends the play by reminding us how the warrior king's famous gains in France were quickly lost under his son's reign. And so as Harry the Sixth opens with the funeral of Henry V, his coffin remains on stage for the first half of Nick Bagnall's production, opening to reveal swords as the battles continue. The late king's successor as scourge of the French is the heroic Lord Talbot (Andrew Sheridan.) The Dauphin (Simon Harrison) and his cronies continue to be incompetents who spend most of their time bragging then running away, but this time they have a secret weapon: The teenage Joan of Arc (Beatriz Romilly) will prove Talbot's nemesis.