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…

The unique problem facing any stand-alone production of Henry VI, Part 2 is the suspended ending. Other plays that are part of a sequence – 3 Henry VI, 1 Henry IV, for instance – still manage to reach a point of conclusion or at least pause; 2 Henry VI, by contrast, spends its running time setting up the board for…

The three weeks of the RSC 1 Henry VI Open Rehearsal Project – previously discussed on The Bardathon here – culminated on June 23rd with a full rehearsal run through in the Swan rehearsal rooms, as the midsummer light waned through the windows around the room. Running at a stripped-down two hours, this was still a fundamentally whole 1 Henry VI, making…