Dr Peter Kirwan

Tag: 3 Henry VI

  • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Again) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Again) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Every now and again, I’ve been lucky to see a revival of an existing play that makes that play feel freshly written, as if designed for that company and that moment. The reworking of Death of a Salesman for an African American family; Theatre Wallay’s reworking of The Taming of the Shrew as a commentary…

  • Born With Teeth (Alley Theatre) @ The Guthrie Theater, McGuire Proscenium Stage

    Born With Teeth (Alley Theatre) @ The Guthrie Theater, McGuire Proscenium Stage

    It’s quite a leap for a bit of fairly rarified attribution studies to lead to a lavish staging of a piece of slash fanfic. But for Liz Duffy Adams, the arguments of the New Oxford Shakespeare that Marlowe and Shakespeare collaborated on the Henry VI plays were enough to prompt a new ninety-minute play, first…

  • The Wars of the Roses (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

    The Wars of the Roses (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

    In the foyers of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Jack Cade’s face stared out from wanted posters. As the production itself began, Aaron Sidwell’s rebel stumbled across the stage, followed by the roaring mob who Clifford and Buckingham had earlier sent after their erstwhile leader. They caught and tore apart Cade bodily on the stage, holding up his…

  • Henry VI (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

    Henry VI (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

    NB: This review is based on a preview performance. Henry VI, the fifth entry in the Globe’s 2019 Histories Cycle, was a production of compromises, if not a compromised production. Reuniting the ensemble that performed 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V over the summer (with a couple of replacement members), the decision to compress the three parts…

  • Queen Margaret @ The Royal Exchange, Manchester

    Queen Margaret @ The Royal Exchange, Manchester

    The idea of rewriting Shakespeare’s first tetralogy to focus on the character of Queen Margaret – the only character to appear alive in all four plays – is a good one, though not original; Charlene Smith’s research has found some twenty-six, with more doubtless to be turned up. Still, it’s rare for one to come…

  • The Wars of the Roses (RSC) (film)

    The Wars of the Roses (RSC) (film)

    The Wars of the Roses is one of those iconic productions – like Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – that I never expected to get a chance to watch in full. Peter Hall and John Barton’s three-part condensation of the first tetralogy of history plays was one of the resounding triumphs of the young Royal Shakespeare Company.…

  • Kings of War (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre

    Kings of War (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre

    In 2009 I was lucky enough to see Toneelgroep Amsterdam perform Ivo van Hove’s Roman Tragedies at the Barbican. That mammoth reworking of Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra remains one of my lifetime theatrical highlights – not just for its length and ambition, but for its cohesive use of space, its innovative flexibility around the actor-audience arrangement, and its thorough…

  • An Age of Kings (BBC) (film)

    An Age of Kings (BBC) (film)

    In 1960, the BBC undertook an extraordinary project. Shakespeare’s eight history plays covering the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V and Richard III were broadcast in fifteen hour-long episodes with a single ensemble company. Rehearsed quickly and recorded live, the films have been unavailable commercially until now,…

  • Henry VI: The True Tragedy of the Duke of York (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ York Theatre Royal

    Henry VI: The True Tragedy of the Duke of York (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ York Theatre Royal

    3 Henry VI is perhaps the hardest play in the canon to begin, starting as it does with the explosion of the Yorks into the Lancastrian throne room. Nick Bagnall had his actors begin standing with the audience before the proscenium arch, then pulling themselves onto the stage in a rather weak movement. This was, however, the worst…

  • Henry VI, Part III: The Chaos (Young Rep) @ The Door, Birmingham Rep

    It’s not unprecedented to produce one part of the Henry VI trilogy in isolation, but it’s an extremely rare occurrence and a financial gamble that few professional theatre companies can afford to take – who’s going to come and see just one part of a trilogy? Yet for their latest production the Young REP have followed in…