0:00:02 > 0:00:05More than 400 years ago, at the height of his powers,
0:00:05 > 0:00:09William Shakespeare sat down to write three plays for his company.
0:00:11 > 0:00:15These plays tell a story that still resonates today -
0:00:15 > 0:00:18a story of fathers and sons, friendship and betrayal,
0:00:18 > 0:00:21rebellion, insurgency, and war.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26It's a story about a king who stole the crown
0:00:26 > 0:00:29and is tormented by his guilt.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32It's about his son, a feckless young Prince
0:00:32 > 0:00:35who is forced to grow up and face his destiny.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38Then, on succeeding to the throne,
0:00:38 > 0:00:42the new young king takes his country to war.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46He becomes the greatest warrior king in English history.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50Cry God for Harry, England...
0:00:50 > 0:00:51and St George!
0:00:51 > 0:00:55It's a story of people facing an uncertain future
0:00:55 > 0:00:59and of a country searching for a new sense of patriotic identity.
0:01:00 > 0:01:02But, Shakespeare being Shakespeare,
0:01:02 > 0:01:05these plays are also sceptical and ambiguous,
0:01:05 > 0:01:08and somehow extraordinarily modern.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24In 1599, William Shakespeare's company
0:01:24 > 0:01:28had a problem that some of us might sympathise with.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32Their landlord refused to extend the lease
0:01:32 > 0:01:35of the site where their theatre stood.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38Their theatre was imaginatively called The Theatre,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42and it was in Curtain Road - at that time some way north of London.
0:01:42 > 0:01:47But the actors owned The Theatre, because they'd built it themselves.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51So, when their landlord was away, they dismantled The Theatre
0:01:51 > 0:01:56and carried it, piece by piece, across the Thames
0:01:56 > 0:02:00and rebuilt it, rather like a giant kit,
0:02:00 > 0:02:02on the south bank of the river.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08The newly rebuilt theatre was called The Globe,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12and, by all accounts, the first play to be performed here was Henry V.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15TRUMPETED FANFARE
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Not far from the original site of Shakespeare's reassembled Globe
0:02:24 > 0:02:26is this modern replica.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29PERIOD MUSIC
0:02:29 > 0:02:32This Oscar-winning British film of Henry V
0:02:32 > 0:02:35was made at the height of the Second World War,
0:02:35 > 0:02:39partly as a piece of inspiring propaganda.
0:02:39 > 0:02:44It was directed by and starred a man with a legitimate claim
0:02:44 > 0:02:47to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his age -
0:02:47 > 0:02:49Laurence Olivier.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56The film opens as if the play were being performed
0:02:56 > 0:02:58in Shakespeare's newly rebuilt Globe Theatre
0:02:58 > 0:03:01at the turn of the 17th century.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12But the story of this King Henry starts almost three plays earlier,
0:03:12 > 0:03:15with Shakespeare's Richard II.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18It tells about how Henry Bolingbroke - Henry IV, to be -
0:03:18 > 0:03:22stole the crown from Richard and took over the throne of England.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27Then Shakespeare took two plays to tell the story of Henry IV,
0:03:27 > 0:03:31before, finally, he could get to Henry V.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36But why write all these history plays, anyway?
0:03:41 > 0:03:45Well, the most obvious answer is that they were good box office.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48History plays were the big hit shows of the 1590s.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54The Shakespearean stage is the first moment
0:03:54 > 0:03:59when big questions of politics, social structure, national identity,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03are explored in public for a socially diverse audience.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08If you try to sort of think about what it was like to be
0:04:08 > 0:04:11an ordinary Londoner in Shakespeare's lifetime.
0:04:11 > 0:04:12How did you get your news?
0:04:12 > 0:04:17All the stuff we get from the television, the internet, newspapers.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20There were two places where people gathered together
0:04:20 > 0:04:24and matters of great concern, public concern, were explored.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27One, of course, was the Church, but obviously what you're getting
0:04:27 > 0:04:30in a sermon is very much the party line.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33But then the second place where people gather together
0:04:33 > 0:04:36is the theatre, and there, of course,
0:04:36 > 0:04:38there is much less state control.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40It's a really exciting, dangerous forum.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47It was in this dangerous forum that Shakespeare presented his new plays.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53But telling the story of a badly behaved Prince called Hal
0:04:53 > 0:04:55and of his father, King Henry,
0:04:55 > 0:04:58and giving them both only a dubious claim to the throne,
0:04:58 > 0:05:00was a risky choice.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04He began at the beginning, with Henry IV Parts One and Two.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09I've just been playing that character of Henry IV
0:05:09 > 0:05:11in a new film of the plays.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14But I wonder what it would have been like
0:05:14 > 0:05:18to have told that story on a stage like this.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20Shall we be merry?
0:05:21 > 0:05:23# Take no scorn to wear the horn
0:05:23 > 0:05:25# It was the crest when you were bore
0:05:25 > 0:05:27# Your father's father wore it
0:05:27 > 0:05:30# And your father wore it, too
0:05:30 > 0:05:31# Hal-an-tow!
0:05:31 > 0:05:33# Jolly-rum-ba-low!
0:05:33 > 0:05:35# We were up
0:05:35 > 0:05:37# Long before the day-o... #
0:05:37 > 0:05:40Henry IV Part One is one of the greatest plays
0:05:40 > 0:05:42Shakespeare ever writes.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Because I think it's got so much for the actors,
0:05:45 > 0:05:46so much for the audience.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49# For summer is a-coming in
0:05:49 > 0:05:51# And winter's gone away-O!... #
0:05:51 > 0:05:55It's a play that has comedy in it, it has tragedy in it.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57There's almost nothing Shakespeare puts in
0:05:57 > 0:05:59every other play that doesn't find
0:05:59 > 0:06:02some trace element in Henry IV Part One.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Lay thine ear close to the ground and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers!
0:06:05 > 0:06:08Not to mention the great part that is Falstaff.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down?
0:06:10 > 0:06:11LAUGHTER
0:06:11 > 0:06:14You don't have two really know very much about English history
0:06:14 > 0:06:17to care deeply about what is going on in that play.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy!
0:06:22 > 0:06:25It's about a young man who is a prince,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28but who is clearly disaffected from the role
0:06:28 > 0:06:31he's being asked to play, and finally having that role
0:06:31 > 0:06:35thrust upon him in a way that is inescapable for him.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41and in the closing of some glorious day be bold to tell you that
0:06:41 > 0:06:42I am your son!
0:06:42 > 0:06:45I think it is an absolutely magnificent play.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52And here you do get a real sense of how the history plays
0:06:52 > 0:06:55worked for Shakespeare's audience.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58They're carnival plays, those plays.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01They're festive and they're quite wild and quite irreverent,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04and that carnival atmosphere is a given here at The Globe.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08So stuff like Falstaff and the Boar's Head scenes, they just erupt,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10because the audience goes wild for Falstaff.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13If I tell thee a lie,
0:07:13 > 0:07:14spit in my face...
0:07:14 > 0:07:16LAUGHTER
0:07:18 > 0:07:20..call me horse.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22LAUGHTER
0:07:22 > 0:07:24And you get that, which is great,
0:07:24 > 0:07:27and then when you go on to the epic scale of it,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30and the battles and the rebellion and the movement around the country,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33this theatre does epic very well, as well.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39The most obvious thing here, and the given thing here is that the audience are lit,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43by the sun in the afternoon, in the evening we light the audience again.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45And then you look into the eyes of the audience,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49so they're not an inky blackness that you stare out into.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51You're looking out at a carpet of 600 faces.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55It's wonderful, this is what Shakespeare wrote for.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59That's what he had in his head as he was writing these plays,
0:07:59 > 0:08:00this sort of place.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04Ahhhh! Welcome, Jack!!!
0:08:04 > 0:08:07And so, it's no wonder that his plays could work here...
0:08:07 > 0:08:09Where hast thou been!!!
0:08:09 > 0:08:11..in a way like they couldn't work anywhere else,
0:08:11 > 0:08:14on a screen or in a conventional proscenium theatre.
0:08:15 > 0:08:16LAUGHTER
0:08:21 > 0:08:24The two Henry IV plays have always been popular
0:08:24 > 0:08:26with critics and audiences alike.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30Yet, curiously, they've seldom made it into the big screen.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34Some stage productions, like The Globe's, have been filmed,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38and occasionally the plays have been produced especially for television.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46This is a story about a man who deposed the King,
0:08:46 > 0:08:51and about a man who has a son, the Prince of Wales, Prince Hal,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53who will one day, hopefully, be a king.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56So, it's a story about a royal family,
0:08:56 > 0:09:02but with the emphasis rather more on family than it is on Royal.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04I know not whether God will have it so,
0:09:04 > 0:09:07for some displeasing service I have done,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12that, in his secret doom, out of my blood
0:09:12 > 0:09:15he'll breed revengement and a scourge for me.
0:09:16 > 0:09:22At the centre of the play is the story of a father and son.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27A son who seems not to live up to the expectations of his father.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30Henry may only have had a tenuous claim to the throne,
0:09:30 > 0:09:33but at least he behaves like a king,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36and is tormented by the fact that his son doesn't.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43Thou has lost thy princely privilege with vile participation!
0:09:43 > 0:09:46The father and son battle of expectation,
0:09:46 > 0:09:49of disappointment, of longing, of love
0:09:49 > 0:09:51but also of hatred,
0:09:51 > 0:09:56is something that plays out over both parts of Henry IV.
0:09:56 > 0:10:01The longing on the part of the King for a different kind of son,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04the son's simultaneous rebellion.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06You shall not find it so.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08One thing Shakespeare does
0:10:08 > 0:10:11to throw the father-son relationship into sharper relief
0:10:11 > 0:10:15is to provide the King with an alternative son,
0:10:15 > 0:10:17a character - Harry Hotspur - who appears
0:10:17 > 0:10:20to have all the qualities that the King wishes his own son -
0:10:20 > 0:10:22also a Hal - had.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26Come, Kate. Though art perfect in lying down.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29Hotspur represents the old-fashioned virtues of honour,
0:10:29 > 0:10:31courage and no-nonsense.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36Hotspur's family, the Percys, had supported Henry
0:10:36 > 0:10:41when he deposed Richard II and, initially, Henry was popular.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44But there was growing discontent in the kingdom.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47In fact, Hotspur was already plotting a rebellion against him.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51So it's particularly ironic that, at the beginning of the play,
0:10:51 > 0:10:53Henry explores the possibility that Hal and Hotspur
0:10:53 > 0:10:56might have been swapped as babies.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59O, that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy
0:10:59 > 0:11:04had in cradle-clothes exchanged our children where they lay.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08Then would I have his Harry...
0:11:08 > 0:11:09and he mine.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12And Shakespeare wasn't content with just inventing
0:11:12 > 0:11:14an alternative son for the King.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17He also created an alternative father for the son, for Hal -
0:11:17 > 0:11:21the character of Sir John Falstaff.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24And much of what is extraordinary about this play
0:11:24 > 0:11:27centres around that character.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31Falstaff maybe a knight, but basically
0:11:31 > 0:11:36he's little more than a womaniser, a thief, a drunk, and a reprobate.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40We love antiheroes, rogues,
0:11:40 > 0:11:43people on the margins, people who disobey the rules.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48It's interesting that Falstaff is fat, isn't it?
0:11:48 > 0:11:51That's a decision Shakespeare makes as a writer
0:11:51 > 0:11:53that Falstaff is going to be fat.
0:11:53 > 0:11:58How long is't ago, Jack, since thou saw thine own knee?
0:11:58 > 0:12:02What is it about fat people, what do they represent?
0:12:02 > 0:12:04Well, in some senses they seem to represent
0:12:04 > 0:12:10laziness, gluttony, but they often also represent life.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life;
0:12:13 > 0:12:16I for a valiant lion, thou for a true prince.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20But, by the Lord, lads, I'm glad you have the money.
0:12:21 > 0:12:22Living life to the full.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25You eat, you drink, you laugh -
0:12:25 > 0:12:29those are the sorts of things that the fatness of Falstaff can evoke.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35It's worth remembering that these are history plays,
0:12:35 > 0:12:37based on real people.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40Even Falstaff was based on a historical character,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44Sir John Oldcastle, although Shakespeare's portrayal of him
0:12:44 > 0:12:47caused such offence to his family that he had to change his name.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50But where did he find these characters?
0:12:50 > 0:12:51His major source
0:12:51 > 0:12:54was one of the definitive history texts of the time
0:12:54 > 0:12:57the Chronicle of English History by Raphael Hollinshed.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01This text hoovers up
0:13:01 > 0:13:03all of the available materials
0:13:03 > 0:13:08to make a very distinctive narrative of the events.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11So, Shakespeare's using an authentic and, for contemporaries,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14a very highly regarded text.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18A contemporary audience to any of the history plays that drew
0:13:18 > 0:13:23from Holingshed would have been struck by their authenticity.
0:13:23 > 0:13:28So, it's a history play, but history can be bent to dramatic purpose.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36In London, at Ealing Studios,
0:13:36 > 0:13:40new film versions of the two Henry IV plays are in production.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42They're being made by a man who's directed
0:13:42 > 0:13:46many of Shakespeare's plays, both on stage and on screen -
0:13:46 > 0:13:47Richard Eyre.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53I think if you could say that Shakespeare was obsessed by anything,
0:13:53 > 0:13:58it would be by the relationships of father and son.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02What Shakespeare does brilliantly, and in a symphonic way,
0:14:02 > 0:14:06over the two plays is follow the theme of father and son
0:14:06 > 0:14:07in many different directions.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11Action!
0:14:11 > 0:14:14In this new version, King Henry's son, Prince Hal,
0:14:14 > 0:14:15is being played by Tom Hiddleston.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17Cut!
0:14:18 > 0:14:21Like teenage sons everywhere,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25Hal has little appetite for responsibility
0:14:25 > 0:14:28and seems to delight in wilfully disregarding his father.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Henry IV is a man of furrowed brow, he's worried.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35He's worried about the state of the kingdom,
0:14:35 > 0:14:37and the insecurity of his position as king.
0:14:37 > 0:14:42And he's desperate for Hal to step up and step into that silhouette
0:14:42 > 0:14:45to be the man, to be the cunning man, the great warrior,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47and Hal's not ready for that yet.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49He wants to mess around in the pub.
0:14:51 > 0:14:56Prince Hal has chosen a surrogate father in Falstaff.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01Henry IV is all backbone and honour,
0:15:01 > 0:15:06but no soft edges, and Falstaff is mostly soft edges with no backbone!
0:15:06 > 0:15:08For rehearsal, and action!
0:15:08 > 0:15:11Falstaff is being played by Simon Russell Beale.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17His disregard for conventional values suits Hal perfectly,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20but is Falstaff's almost paternal relationship with the young prince
0:15:20 > 0:15:23as straightforward as it seems?
0:15:24 > 0:15:28Does Falstaff love Hal? I'm not sure.
0:15:28 > 0:15:33One's instinct is to say yes, you know, this gorgeous lad, this...
0:15:35 > 0:15:40..marvellous young, energetic, clever man,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44is spending time with a man on his way out.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46But I'm not sure.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50It's muddied by the fact that Falstaff keeps on going on about,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52"When you're king, you'll do this for me.
0:15:52 > 0:15:54"And when you're king, I can't wait for when you're king."
0:15:54 > 0:15:59And you think, Falstaff's too much of a petty crook
0:15:59 > 0:16:03not to be taking that seriously, that he's on to a winner
0:16:03 > 0:16:05if he's best friends with the Prince of Wales.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09It's very, very hard to think of any character who is
0:16:09 > 0:16:12unalloyed good or unalloyed bad.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17Oh, isn't Hal something of a hero, you know, a golden boy?
0:16:17 > 0:16:21Actually, the more you get into it, you think he's a terrible shit.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24I mean, he really does some dreadful things.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29And then you have the sort of surrogate father, Falstaff,
0:16:29 > 0:16:35who is a congenital liar, congenital drunk, and congenital thief.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39So, there is no exemplary character.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41There are always ambiguities.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44I mean, if you say, "What is Shakespearean?"
0:16:44 > 0:16:48everything that is Shakespearean is ambiguous.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54Today they're about to film one of the play's most ambiguous
0:16:54 > 0:16:56but dramatically important scenes.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00It involves Prince Hal and Jack Falstaff at the Boar's Head pub.
0:17:03 > 0:17:05While Hal is with his surrogate father,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08a messenger arrives from his real father, the King,
0:17:08 > 0:17:12to demand Hal's attendance at the Palace in the morning.
0:17:12 > 0:17:13Falstaff says, tomorrow
0:17:13 > 0:17:16you're going to get a right bollocking from your dad.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19You should practice an answer. I'll play your father.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22That's a great pub game!
0:17:22 > 0:17:24Let's do an impression of my dad,
0:17:24 > 0:17:25let's see who does the best impression.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29Yes!
0:17:29 > 0:17:33Hal's split loyalties between Falstaff and his father
0:17:33 > 0:17:34are central to both plays.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39Falstaff brings out the wayward and irresponsible side of Hal.
0:17:41 > 0:17:45But Shakespeare knew that he needed to open up
0:17:45 > 0:17:48another side of the young Prince's personality.
0:17:48 > 0:17:50How does he solve that problem?
0:17:50 > 0:17:52He solves it through a play within a play.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55This fantastic scene, to my mind...
0:17:56 > 0:18:00Come on, I'll say it - the greatest scene Shakespeare ever wrote -
0:18:00 > 0:18:04this fantastic scene where they act out Prince Hal
0:18:04 > 0:18:06returning to court,
0:18:06 > 0:18:08being interviewed by his father.
0:18:08 > 0:18:13It's an amazing piece of theatre, where you have Falstaff and Hal
0:18:13 > 0:18:17playing the parts of King Henry IV and Hal.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
0:18:20 > 0:18:22There is a virtuous man
0:18:22 > 0:18:24whom I've often noted in thy company,
0:18:24 > 0:18:25but I know not his name.
0:18:25 > 0:18:30Falstaff, being Falstaff, doesn't play the game properly.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32What manner of man, alike your Majesty?
0:18:32 > 0:18:34A goodly, portly man...
0:18:36 > 0:18:39Wearing a cushion and copper pot crown of a king,
0:18:39 > 0:18:42he doesn't tell Hal to pull his royal socks up.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45Rather, he instructs the young prince
0:18:45 > 0:18:48to spend more time with a splendid fellow called...
0:18:48 > 0:18:51- ALL:- Falstaff!
0:18:51 > 0:18:56And then I say, oh, right, let me do an impression of my father, and you play me.
0:18:57 > 0:18:58Yaaay!
0:19:00 > 0:19:02'Then there's the wonderful comic opportunity
0:19:02 > 0:19:05'of having Falstaff pretending to be Hal,
0:19:05 > 0:19:07'and then you see their mutual affection.'
0:19:13 > 0:19:16This moment is actually the turning point of the whole scene,
0:19:16 > 0:19:18possibly the play.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22Well, here am I set.
0:19:23 > 0:19:24And here I stand.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29The roles are now reversed, with Hal playing the King.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Whether aware of it or not, Hal's perspective begins to change.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Play-acting the King, he's going to tell Hal,
0:19:37 > 0:19:41now played by Falstaff, to banish his fat friend.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44There is a devil haunts thee
0:19:44 > 0:19:49in the likeness of an old, fat man...
0:19:49 > 0:19:53'And at the end of that game there is a chilling premonition'
0:19:53 > 0:19:57that runs down his spine that takes him by surprise.
0:19:57 > 0:19:59No, my good lord,
0:19:59 > 0:20:04banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but...
0:20:07 > 0:20:09..for sweet Jack Falstaff,
0:20:09 > 0:20:13kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
0:20:13 > 0:20:14valiant Jack Falstaff,
0:20:14 > 0:20:18and therefore the more valiant, being, as he is,
0:20:18 > 0:20:20old Jack Falstaff...
0:20:21 > 0:20:22...banish plump Jack, and...
0:20:25 > 0:20:27..banish all the world.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43I do.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48I will.
0:20:48 > 0:20:49Cut!
0:20:50 > 0:20:53If you know the play well, if you love the play, you can't watch it with a dry eye.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57It's also technically so brilliant, because he's saying "I do"
0:20:57 > 0:21:01within the context of the play within the play, acting the part.
0:21:01 > 0:21:03But then, in that instant pause
0:21:03 > 0:21:06and the shift of the verb tense, "I will",
0:21:06 > 0:21:10he's speaking not within the play within the play, but as himself.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14He's giving Falstaff warning that the moment will come.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16Depose me?
0:21:16 > 0:21:17CHEERING
0:21:17 > 0:21:20The "I do, I will" scene raises the whole question
0:21:20 > 0:21:22of Hal's real character throughout the plays,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26and that can be interpreted in many different ways.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29The question that lingers about Hal
0:21:29 > 0:21:33is whether he has this all plotted out from the very beginning,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35whether he has a master plan,
0:21:35 > 0:21:39and the master plan is, "OK, I'm going to lark about for a while.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43"I'm going to look really, pretty terrible
0:21:43 > 0:21:47"so that when I eventually become King,
0:21:47 > 0:21:51"even if I make a botch of it, I'll still exceed expectations."
0:21:52 > 0:21:54Oh, my sweet Harry!
0:21:54 > 0:21:58I think Hal doesn't have any of it planned out.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02He just has an idea of how he wants his life to go.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Give my roan horse a drench.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09I think it's just like he's a young guy,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12who knows that the fun will have to end one day.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16But, for the time being, let's have fun.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24Whatever Hals' motivation - and, of course, it remains ambiguous -
0:22:24 > 0:22:26he does visit the Palace in the morning to face
0:22:26 > 0:22:28his real father's disapproval.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33For all the world, even as I was then is Percy now.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38He hath more worthy interest to the state than thou,
0:22:38 > 0:22:40the shadow of succession.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45For of no right, nor colour like to right,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48he doth fill fields with harness in the realm...
0:22:48 > 0:22:53'In many ways, Henry's a very lonely figure at the centre of this play,
0:22:53 > 0:22:56'weighed down by the responsibility of the kingdom,'
0:22:56 > 0:23:00and somehow excluded from the warmth of the relationship
0:23:00 > 0:23:03he suspects his son has with Falstaff.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08And that feeling of exclusion, I think,
0:23:08 > 0:23:13only adds to his feeling of melancholy and loneliness.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19In time, Henry will come to believe his son
0:23:19 > 0:23:23can and will live up to his expectations.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26But, meanwhile, he must deal with the consequences
0:23:26 > 0:23:28of how he came to be King.
0:23:30 > 0:23:35Threading through both parts of Henry IV is the explicit,
0:23:35 > 0:23:40tortured guilt of the King, who has deposed the previous king,
0:23:40 > 0:23:43who has usurped the throne.
0:23:43 > 0:23:45So, he becomes more and more suspicious
0:23:45 > 0:23:48of the people who've helped him to become King,
0:23:48 > 0:23:51and then more and more paranoid,
0:23:51 > 0:23:55because he's more and more certain that they are plotting against him,
0:23:55 > 0:23:57and then, of course, they do plot against him.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid.
0:24:01 > 0:24:02Our friends true and constant.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07A good plot, good friends and full of expectation.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19As happened historically,
0:24:19 > 0:24:22Henry gradually loses the support of the very men
0:24:22 > 0:24:25who had helped him deposed Richard,
0:24:25 > 0:24:27and now they plan to depose him.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32Shakespeare takes that historical fact and then weaves in
0:24:32 > 0:24:34the dramatic irony that it will be Harry Percy -
0:24:34 > 0:24:39Hotspur, the man whom Henry once wished for as a son -
0:24:39 > 0:24:42who will lead the rebel army against him.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48The battle that inexorably follows
0:24:48 > 0:24:50will take place on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00Henry spent the night before the battle here,
0:25:00 > 0:25:03at this Augustinian Abbey of Haughmond,
0:25:03 > 0:25:08but before the battle, Henry wanted to negotiate,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11if possible, a settlement, so that they wouldn't have to fight,
0:25:11 > 0:25:15because he knew that, if they did, it would be carnage.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20But the negotiations fail,
0:25:20 > 0:25:23and the next day Shakespeare brings together
0:25:23 > 0:25:28all his main protagonists Henry and the Prince,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31and Hotspur and Falstaff,
0:25:31 > 0:25:34in perhaps the defining moment of the drama.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46It's the morning of the battle.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50Falstaff and Prince Hal will be fighting,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54together with the King, against the rebel forces.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58But Shakespeare undermines our moral certainty
0:25:58 > 0:26:00by looking at the impending conflict
0:26:00 > 0:26:03from Falstaff's utterly subversive point of view.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07He knows he's a wastrel, he knows he's a cheat.
0:26:07 > 0:26:08He might be morally dubious,
0:26:08 > 0:26:10but certainly his analysis of lots of situations
0:26:10 > 0:26:13are absolutely accurate, including his own.
0:26:14 > 0:26:19'Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22'Or take away the grief of a wound? No.'
0:26:23 > 0:26:25And he knows about honour.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28'What is in that word, honour? What is that honour?'
0:26:31 > 0:26:33'Air.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36'A trim reckoning!
0:26:36 > 0:26:39'Who hath it? He that died on Wednesday.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44'Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46'Tis insensible, then.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49'Yea, to the dead.
0:26:49 > 0:26:51'But will it not live with the living?
0:26:51 > 0:26:53'No.'
0:26:53 > 0:26:56He's absolutely right about what he says about honour,
0:26:56 > 0:27:00which is that it's just a word, it's just air, it means nothing,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03it allows people to behave in despicable ways
0:27:03 > 0:27:06and also to risk their own lives
0:27:06 > 0:27:09for no other reason than their own pride.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12So it's an angry speech.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18So, it's with Falstaff's words ringing in our ears
0:27:18 > 0:27:20that Shakespeare's Battle of Shrewsbury begins.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24CHARGING CRIES
0:27:28 > 0:27:32We filmed this battle in the depths of the snowy winter of 2012,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36a few miles west of London in Rickmansworth.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41- Cut!- And we've cut! we've cut!
0:27:41 > 0:27:45Well done, people, back to number ones, please, nice and steady.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48It was actually fought a few miles north of Shrewsbury
0:27:48 > 0:27:49in the high summer of 1403.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58This is the actual site of the Battle of Shrewsbury,
0:27:58 > 0:28:01with Hotspur and the rebel forces on the hill behind me
0:28:01 > 0:28:03and the King's forces ranged below.
0:28:03 > 0:28:09And it was here that Hal showed Henry IV - his father, me -
0:28:09 > 0:28:12the first signs of the hero he was to become.
0:28:12 > 0:28:18And it's also an example of truth being even stranger than fiction,
0:28:18 > 0:28:20because when Hal fought in this battle,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23he was just 16 years old.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29But, as far as Shakespeare was concerned,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32the important fact wasn't Hal's age,
0:28:32 > 0:28:35it was that father and son were finally united in a cause
0:28:35 > 0:28:39that would begin to rebuild their relationship.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43The Prince would be fighting with the King against a common foe -
0:28:43 > 0:28:45the rebel army of Harry Hotspur.
0:28:46 > 0:28:51Hal's experience alongside his father at the Battle of Shrewsbury
0:28:51 > 0:28:55changes who Hal is.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02His proximity to his father as a leader of an army
0:29:02 > 0:29:04alters his moral compass.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12He sees Falstaff in a different light.
0:29:12 > 0:29:16he sees Falstaff less as a jolly fat man
0:29:16 > 0:29:19and more as a coward and a liar.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23In the play - and again, this is Shakespeare's invention -
0:29:23 > 0:29:26it is Hal who meets Hotspur face-to-face.
0:29:26 > 0:29:28Henry's real son, the loyal Prince,
0:29:28 > 0:29:34against his idealised notion of a son, now turned rebel - Hotspur.
0:29:34 > 0:29:35Argh!
0:29:35 > 0:29:39And then we're into the fight and it's a great mediaeval battle.
0:29:44 > 0:29:50Hal's defeat of Hotspur is part of Hal's inheritance
0:29:50 > 0:29:52of that martial valour.
0:29:52 > 0:29:54By defeating this great warrior,
0:29:54 > 0:30:00Hal assumes all of that power and courage and might.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04You can see he's already beginning to change.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08His shoulders are broadening, not just physically but metaphorically.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11He's becoming a man.
0:30:11 > 0:30:16Shakespeare chose to be historically inaccurate
0:30:16 > 0:30:19in order to heighten the dramatic power of his play.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22And called mine "Percy," his "Plantagenet"!
0:30:22 > 0:30:24Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
0:30:24 > 0:30:29To have the King compare Hal to Hotspur as a potential son,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33and to make them comparable military arrivals,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36Shakespeare had to make them the same age,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40but he knew perfectly well from his history books
0:30:40 > 0:30:43that Hotspur was about 30 years older than Hal.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48The notion that Shakespeare has built,
0:30:48 > 0:30:52if you like, the dramatic force of his play on a historical falsity
0:30:52 > 0:30:55sometimes is very anxious-making for historians today,
0:30:55 > 0:30:59but for his own times, powerfully plausible.
0:30:59 > 0:31:01This is his slight adjustment for dramatic purposes,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05but for important, sort of, dramatic purpose -
0:31:05 > 0:31:08he's making a point about those characters.
0:31:08 > 0:31:09BELL TOLLS
0:31:11 > 0:31:15With the death of Hotspur and thousands more,
0:31:15 > 0:31:19King Henry won the Battle of Shrewsbury.
0:31:19 > 0:31:24This threatened civil war was over before it began.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28After the battle, though he was triumphant militarily,
0:31:28 > 0:31:31he also found himself emotionally shattered by the huge loss of life.
0:31:31 > 0:31:33He was a deeply religious man.
0:31:33 > 0:31:37And so he ordered this church to be built,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40possibly on the site of the mass graves.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49Shakespeare picks up on the King's shattered emotions, and from here on in,
0:31:49 > 0:31:53the story is set against Henry's gradual disintegration.
0:32:00 > 0:32:05Shakespeare now focuses on Henry as a man approaching the end of his life.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10Rebellions against him continue,
0:32:10 > 0:32:13his grip on the crown remains fragile
0:32:13 > 0:32:16as he more and more obsesses about the fact
0:32:16 > 0:32:20that he became King by deposing a King.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24A crime against the law of Divine Right.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27A crime against God himself.
0:32:29 > 0:32:36I think it's very hard to imagine nowadays the sort of guilt he felt.
0:32:36 > 0:32:42But that guilt, certainly one of the things it did was to stop sleeping.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45And Shakespeare says...
0:32:45 > 0:32:48gives him the lines...
0:32:48 > 0:32:51How many thousand of my poorest subjects
0:32:51 > 0:32:53Are at this hour asleep!
0:32:53 > 0:32:55O sleep, O gentle sleep,
0:32:55 > 0:32:57How have I frighted thee,
0:32:57 > 0:32:59That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
0:32:59 > 0:33:04And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
0:33:04 > 0:33:06Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
0:33:06 > 0:33:09Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains
0:33:09 > 0:33:15Within the roar and surge of the unruly sea
0:33:15 > 0:33:19And in the calmest and most stillest night,
0:33:19 > 0:33:21Deny it to a king?
0:33:23 > 0:33:26Then happy low...
0:33:27 > 0:33:29..lie down!
0:33:31 > 0:33:33Uneasy lies the head
0:33:33 > 0:33:36that wears a crown.
0:33:52 > 0:33:58Running through the Henry IV plays is a vein of poetic imagery...
0:33:58 > 0:34:00of disease and decay.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02It's disease and decay in the state,
0:34:02 > 0:34:04but it's also in the King himself.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08The King is sick, the state is sick - the two things go together.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12And as the plays unfold, the King gets more and more sick.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21As the second play in the trilogy reaches its climax,
0:34:21 > 0:34:25the increasingly ill King collapses at Westminster Abbey,
0:34:25 > 0:34:30and here, Shakespeare DOES follow the historical truth.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34Henry was brought from the Abbey to this room.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39'In the play, he asks what the room is called
0:34:39 > 0:34:43nd is told that it is the Jerusalem Chamber.
0:34:43 > 0:34:49To Henry, this is an oblique fulfilment of the prophecy that he would die in the Holy Land.
0:34:49 > 0:34:55He says to his courtiers, "In that Jerusalem will Harry die."
0:34:57 > 0:35:04And they laid him on a bed in front of this fire.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10So this is where Henry spent the last few hours of his life
0:35:10 > 0:35:13on the 20th March 1413.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16And, if he was conscious,
0:35:16 > 0:35:19then he probably noticed in the roof,
0:35:19 > 0:35:24the letter R over and over again.
0:35:24 > 0:35:27R for the man who built this room,
0:35:27 > 0:35:31King Richard II, and the man who Henry had deposed
0:35:31 > 0:35:33and whom, especially at this moment,
0:35:33 > 0:35:37must have been lying very heavily on his conscience.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41With his father's death, Prince Hal finally becomes Henry V,
0:35:41 > 0:35:46and Shakespeare makes sure that his first act as King
0:35:46 > 0:35:49and his last act in the play Henry IV Part Two
0:35:49 > 0:35:53is the one that he hinted at earlier in Henry IV Part One.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00Hal has said "I do" and he had said "I will"
0:36:00 > 0:36:05so now he must turn his back on - and indeed banish - Jack Falstaff.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11My king! My Jove!
0:36:11 > 0:36:13I speak to thee, my heart!
0:36:13 > 0:36:18I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
0:36:32 > 0:36:36So with the death of Henry IV, we finally get back to where we started -
0:36:36 > 0:36:40Henry V. But we're only halfway through the tale.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44And Henry V presented enormous problems to contemporary 16th-century theatre,
0:36:44 > 0:36:50because apart from its depictions of battles, the locations leap around from England to Wales
0:36:50 > 0:36:55to the beleaguered palaces and cities and battlefields of northern France.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58And how you do that in a theatre like this?
0:37:00 > 0:37:01O for a Muse of fire,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04That would ascend the brightest heaven of invention,
0:37:04 > 0:37:06A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
0:37:06 > 0:37:07And monarchs...
0:37:07 > 0:37:10Shakespeare's answer is extraordinarily innovative.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14He invents a character, the Chorus, who apologises for the problem
0:37:14 > 0:37:17and appeals directly to the audience to use their imagination
0:37:17 > 0:37:20and suspend their disbelief.
0:37:20 > 0:37:22But pardon, and gentles all,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25The flat unraised spirits that have dared
0:37:25 > 0:37:28On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France?
0:37:34 > 0:37:36Or may we cram Within this wooden O
0:37:36 > 0:37:41the very casques That did fright the air at Agincourt?
0:37:41 > 0:37:44Probably, it was the first production they did
0:37:44 > 0:37:45in the Globe in 1599.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48Shakespeare was at a crisis in his career.
0:37:48 > 0:37:49He'd come into a new theatre,
0:37:49 > 0:37:52he wanted to write in a new way,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55and that invitation of the Chorus to use your imagination...
0:37:55 > 0:37:58and to "piece out our imperfections with your mind"
0:37:58 > 0:38:00is essential to what the Globe is.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
0:38:02 > 0:38:05Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12And that's the nature of Shakespearean theatre
0:38:12 > 0:38:16is what's defined by the Chorus is a sort of realism where you have to be truthful,
0:38:16 > 0:38:20you have to be honest, but you come on and you say, "I am Hamlet."
0:38:20 > 0:38:22And the audience goes, "OK."
0:38:22 > 0:38:26- Yup.- You know, "This is Denmark." "All right, I'll go with you on that."
0:38:26 > 0:38:28And then you go wherever they want you to go,
0:38:28 > 0:38:31led and steered completely by the actors and what's in your own head.
0:38:31 > 0:38:33And that's central to Henry V.
0:38:34 > 0:38:39And let us, ciphers to this great account,
0:38:39 > 0:38:41On your imaginary forces work.
0:38:45 > 0:38:49If the first two plays were about fathers and sons,
0:38:49 > 0:38:52then in Henry V, Shakespeare shifts his attention
0:38:52 > 0:38:55to the subject of how to be a good king.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58Almost as soon as the play begins,
0:38:58 > 0:39:02Henry sets off to France in pursuit of a claim to the French throne.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08War will almost inevitably follow, so why do it?
0:39:11 > 0:39:13Historically, for five centuries,
0:39:13 > 0:39:16the English monarchs had very strong links with France.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19There is no bar
0:39:19 > 0:39:22To make against your highness' claim to France
0:39:22 > 0:39:23But this...
0:39:23 > 0:39:27The English owned large parts of what is now France,
0:39:27 > 0:39:30so Henry's claim to the French throne was not completely absurd,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33but it was complicated.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36The Archbishop of Canterbury's justification
0:39:36 > 0:39:38of Henry's claims the French throne
0:39:38 > 0:39:40once again reveals
0:39:40 > 0:39:41the playwright at work
0:39:41 > 0:39:44or, in this case, avoiding work.
0:39:44 > 0:39:49He took almost the entire text of the speech from the Holinshed Chronicles.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52No woman shall succeed in Salic land.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56In Shakespeare, "No woman shall succeed in Salic land,"
0:39:56 > 0:39:58and then we have...
0:39:58 > 0:40:01Holinshed - "Into the Salic land let not women succeed."
0:40:01 > 0:40:04Shakespeare...
0:40:04 > 0:40:08Which Salic land the French unjustly gloze to be the realm of France.
0:40:08 > 0:40:09Holinshed...
0:40:09 > 0:40:13"Which the French glossers expound to be the realm of France."
0:40:13 > 0:40:15So, virtually identical.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
0:40:18 > 0:40:21that the land Salic lies in Germany.
0:40:21 > 0:40:26"Whereas yet their own authors affirm that the land Salic is in Germany."
0:40:26 > 0:40:27It's the same stuff.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons...
0:40:31 > 0:40:34"When Charles the Great had overcome the Saxons..."
0:40:34 > 0:40:36You know, if it's an undergraduate essay,
0:40:36 > 0:40:41there would be charges of plagiarism because it's pretty much identical.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46So, we know where Shakespeare got this material from,
0:40:46 > 0:40:50but what we can't be sure of is what he thought of it.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52Blithild...
0:40:52 > 0:40:53LAUGHTER
0:40:53 > 0:40:57The scene's obviously comic potential does beg that question,
0:40:57 > 0:41:01"Did Shakespeare by this justification for war?"
0:41:01 > 0:41:05It is, of course, once again, deliberately ambiguous.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08May I with right and conscience make this claim?
0:41:08 > 0:41:11The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
0:41:11 > 0:41:15It seems with every new production of the play has to come up with
0:41:15 > 0:41:16its own answers.
0:41:25 > 0:41:26At a time when conflict
0:41:26 > 0:41:31and wars around the world remain front page news,
0:41:31 > 0:41:34the latest to examine the relevance of Shakespeare's Henry V
0:41:34 > 0:41:39is the director of a new film of the play, Thea Sharrock.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42Well, it's funny lots of people have said to me,
0:41:42 > 0:41:47"Oh, so you're doing Henry V - are you doing pro-war or anti-war?"
0:41:47 > 0:41:49As if those were the only two choices!
0:41:51 > 0:41:54'I hope I'm not really doing either.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58'I'm just trying to tell the story that war happens all the time'
0:41:58 > 0:42:02and it's very easy to lose touch with the individuals within it.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06'This is a play about a young man
0:42:06 > 0:42:11'who has been made king and who, literally,'
0:42:11 > 0:42:13learns how to be a king in front of our eyes
0:42:13 > 0:42:17during the course of the play, during the course of the film.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22Tom Hiddleston, Prince Hal in the Henry IV films
0:42:22 > 0:42:26now inherits the crown and becomes Henry V.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30This is a play about leadership in wartime
0:42:30 > 0:42:33and the challenges facing a new King.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35Tom will have to get to grips with
0:42:35 > 0:42:38some of the most famous speeches Shakespeare ever wrote,
0:42:38 > 0:42:41and in the making of this film, he was asked to do that
0:42:41 > 0:42:43on the very first day.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46Day one, slate one, take one.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49"Once more unto the breach, dear friends."
0:42:49 > 0:42:52I couldn't believe it. I said to the producers, "Are you joking?!"
0:42:57 > 0:43:00Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
0:43:00 > 0:43:04Or close the wall up with our English dead!
0:43:04 > 0:43:08'It was almost a rallying cry to myself. Or to the whole unit.'
0:43:08 > 0:43:13If any of you were in any doubt of the project that we are engaged in,
0:43:13 > 0:43:17Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
0:43:17 > 0:43:22The game's afoot, follow your spirit and upon this charge,
0:43:22 > 0:43:28Cry, "God for Harry, England, and St George!"
0:43:30 > 0:43:33These scenes tell the story of Henry's army bogged down
0:43:33 > 0:43:36in a siege against the French town of Harfleur.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42Henry's campaign is not going well and many of his soldiers
0:43:42 > 0:43:46have no great appetite for the fight.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51Thea Sharrock and Tom Hiddleston are following in famous footsteps
0:43:51 > 0:43:54as their film will inevitably be compared
0:43:54 > 0:43:57with two of the most celebrated adaptations of Shakespeare.
0:43:57 > 0:43:59Not only Laurence Olivier's wartime classic,
0:43:59 > 0:44:01which he both directed and starred in,
0:44:01 > 0:44:08but also Kenneth Branagh's 1989 film that he too directed and starred in.
0:44:08 > 0:44:14I hope what's exciting about this is that Henry is not directing himself,
0:44:14 > 0:44:17and my Henry is being directed by a woman -
0:44:17 > 0:44:22I can't tell you what it would be like if I were a man as I have no idea!
0:44:22 > 0:44:27I hope that we got to the highs and lows of emotion
0:44:27 > 0:44:31that we believe this character was capable of.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34When it comes to those highs and lows,
0:44:34 > 0:44:37Shakespeare offers no more than the text.
0:44:37 > 0:44:39There are no lengthy stage directions.
0:44:39 > 0:44:43Directors, actors and scholars have to decide for themselves
0:44:43 > 0:44:48what kind of a king Shakespeare meant Henry V to be.
0:44:48 > 0:44:54Well, he's not Hal any more, he's Henry. But he's learning on the job
0:44:54 > 0:44:58and he, very quickly, is put into extreme circumstances,
0:44:58 > 0:45:02and it makes him behave in a certain way, and he's no angel,
0:45:02 > 0:45:04I think he get things wrong,
0:45:04 > 0:45:06I think he says some terrible things along the way.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11There are some really brutal moments in that play.
0:45:11 > 0:45:13In the scene where...
0:45:13 > 0:45:17At the siege of Harfleur, there's an extraordinary threat that he makes.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20How yet resolves the governor of the town?
0:45:22 > 0:45:27To our best mercy give yourselves. Or like to men proud of destruction,
0:45:27 > 0:45:29defy us to our worst.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33For, as I am a soldier, a name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
0:45:33 > 0:45:37if I begin the battery once again, I will not leave
0:45:37 > 0:45:42the half-achieved Harfleur till in her ashes she lie buried.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46This is a truly brutal speech and it's entirely Shakespeare's invention.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49There's nothing in Holinshed to justify it.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53Why, in a moment, look to see the blind
0:45:53 > 0:45:55and bloody soldier with foul hand
0:45:55 > 0:45:59defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters.
0:45:59 > 0:46:02Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
0:46:02 > 0:46:05and their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls.
0:46:05 > 0:46:09Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
0:46:09 > 0:46:13while the mad mothers with their howls confused to break the clouds.
0:46:13 > 0:46:15Effectively, he says,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18"You better surrender otherwise my men will come in
0:46:18 > 0:46:20"and rape your wives and mutilate your babies".
0:46:20 > 0:46:24While Henry gives the speech of Harfleur to the governor,
0:46:24 > 0:46:26I think he shocks himself with what he says.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30What say you? Will you yield and this avoid?
0:46:30 > 0:46:34Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroyed?
0:46:34 > 0:46:36And that will reverberate with him.
0:46:36 > 0:46:38If not in the moment, but you can bet your bottom dollar,
0:46:38 > 0:46:41it has an effect on him thereafter, for sure.
0:46:41 > 0:46:45Our expectation has this day an end.
0:46:45 > 0:46:50'If Henry V is about anything it's about the nature of war.'
0:46:50 > 0:46:56It's all very well to celebrate and revere homecoming heroes,
0:46:56 > 0:47:00but Shakespeare is brave enough, and we want him to be brave enough,
0:47:00 > 0:47:06about displaying how those wars are won.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14This speech presented Laurence Olivier with a major problem
0:47:14 > 0:47:18when he filmed the play at the height of the Second World War.
0:47:18 > 0:47:20So how would he handle it?
0:47:20 > 0:47:25What Henry is threatening would hardly go down well in 1944.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28So what Sir Laurence decided to do was cut it,
0:47:28 > 0:47:32or at least cut 41 of the 43 lines.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39'How yet resolves the governor of the town?'
0:47:39 > 0:47:42This is the latest parle we will admit.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47Our expectation hath this day an end...
0:47:47 > 0:47:52After a 35-day siege, Henry did take the town of Harfleur
0:47:52 > 0:47:55without having to carry out his savage threat.
0:47:59 > 0:48:04Depleted and exhausted, Henry's army was reluctant to fight.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10But the French Army cut off their retreat near the River Somme,
0:48:10 > 0:48:12seemingly determined to provoke a battle
0:48:12 > 0:48:15near a town called Agincourt.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17There's an extraordinary scene
0:48:17 > 0:48:19the night before the battle
0:48:19 > 0:48:23where the King goes in disguise among his men
0:48:23 > 0:48:27and they debate about what it means to fight for your king,
0:48:27 > 0:48:29to die for your country.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32It brings King Harry up short.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34It's extraordinarily powerful.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's company.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42His cause being just and his quarrel honourable.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45That's more than we know.
0:48:45 > 0:48:47Ay, or more than we should seek after.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50'That scene at the end of Henry V just before the Battle of Agincourt
0:48:50 > 0:48:52'is one of the most remarkable scenes'
0:48:52 > 0:48:55that Shakespeare ever scripted,
0:48:55 > 0:48:58partly because the words of the common soldiers
0:48:58 > 0:49:02are so compelling and powerful.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04But if the cause be not good, the King himself
0:49:04 > 0:49:10hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads,
0:49:10 > 0:49:14chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day
0:49:14 > 0:49:20and cry all "We died at...such a place".
0:49:20 > 0:49:23But he doesn't take it in, he can't quite take it in.
0:49:23 > 0:49:25He has to listen and yet not listen.
0:49:25 > 0:49:30I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33It's a brilliant moment of a certain kind of
0:49:33 > 0:49:36Shakespearean vision of leadership -
0:49:36 > 0:49:41the leadership that involves being able to put off your kingly crown
0:49:41 > 0:49:44and move among the common people and listen,
0:49:44 > 0:49:48but not enough to make him freeze in the face of the decisions he'll make.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52Decisions that, for all he knows, may lead them all to their deaths.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57The play may be more than 400 years old,
0:49:57 > 0:49:59but in their home barracks,
0:49:59 > 0:50:02British combat soldiers preparing to return to Afghanistan
0:50:02 > 0:50:05are watching that scene from Henry V,
0:50:05 > 0:50:08and for them, it's familiar territory.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11You would actually recognise that, definitely.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15You will have that sit down and talk between yourselves before you go out,
0:50:15 > 0:50:19and there's definitely the fear there before certain ops.
0:50:19 > 0:50:21Wars change but the people don't change a lot.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25So the fear you just saw is the same, and the confidence as well.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28Obviously, war's a dangerous place to be in.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31Its a recognisable situation.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35At a basic leadership level you'd a have a potter around before a battle,
0:50:35 > 0:50:36have a chat with the blokes,
0:50:36 > 0:50:39and even if you were doomed, you'd pretend you weren't.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49On the morning of the battle in October 1415,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52Henry did think that there was a very good chance
0:50:52 > 0:50:54that he and his outnumbered army were doomed,
0:50:54 > 0:50:57so Shakespeare provided him with one of the greatest speeches
0:50:57 > 0:50:59he ever wrote.
0:50:59 > 0:51:03And the extraordinary thing is that in Shakespeare's source book,
0:51:03 > 0:51:06we can find the very words that inspired him to write that speech.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13"It is said that as he heard one of the host utter his wish
0:51:13 > 0:51:15"to another thus, I would to God there were with us now
0:51:15 > 0:51:19"so many good soldiers as are at this hour within England!"
0:51:19 > 0:51:24The king answered, "I would not wish a man more than I have.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27"We are indeed, in comparison to the enemy, but a few,
0:51:27 > 0:51:31"but we shall speed well enough."
0:51:31 > 0:51:37And out of this source material, Shakespeare wove pure magic.
0:51:37 > 0:51:38Oh, that we now had here
0:51:38 > 0:51:42but one ten thousand of those men in England that do not work today.
0:51:42 > 0:51:43What's he that wishes so?
0:51:43 > 0:51:46If we are marked to die, we are enough
0:51:46 > 0:51:49to do our country loss. And if to live, the fewer men,
0:51:49 > 0:51:51the greater share of honour.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55God's will, I pray thee wish not one man more.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57Henry V is a play about leadership
0:51:57 > 0:52:01and what it means to be a great leader and in 2012,
0:52:01 > 0:52:06we are very cynical about leadership, it seems to me.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10And I certainly am part of a generation of people, I think,
0:52:10 > 0:52:12who don't trust rhetoric.
0:52:12 > 0:52:16This day is called the feast of Crispian.
0:52:16 > 0:52:22He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe
0:52:22 > 0:52:26when the day is named, and rouse him in the name of Crispian.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30And if you look at what the speech means, all it means
0:52:30 > 0:52:34is that it appeals to basic courage which is very old-fashioned.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37He that shall see this day, and live old age,
0:52:37 > 0:52:40will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
0:52:40 > 0:52:44and say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."
0:52:44 > 0:52:48Many, many actors, Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh included,
0:52:48 > 0:52:51have decided or chosen to do it in front of the whole army.
0:52:51 > 0:52:53It's a big speech for the whole army.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56This story shall the good man teach his son.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
0:52:59 > 0:53:02from this day to the ending of the world.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06But we in it, shall be remember'd.
0:53:06 > 0:53:11We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15'Thea Sharrock and I decided to do it to a small group of people
0:53:15 > 0:53:17'for the band of brothers.'
0:53:17 > 0:53:20Wouldn't it be great if we had more men in our army? You know what?
0:53:20 > 0:53:22We don't need those men in our army. Why?
0:53:22 > 0:53:28Because it is a brave and noble thing to die standing up for your country.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31We few.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36We happy few.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41We band of brothers.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45For he today that sheds his blood with me
0:53:45 > 0:53:48shall be my brother.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55And gentlemen in England now a-bed
0:53:55 > 0:53:59shall think themselves accursed they were not here.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
0:54:03 > 0:54:07that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21This is the actual site of the Battle of Agincourt.
0:54:21 > 0:54:27The English with their much smaller army was lined up on the horizon
0:54:27 > 0:54:30facing the French, vastly outnumbered,
0:54:30 > 0:54:34and it was clear that, whatever was going to happen,
0:54:34 > 0:54:37it was going to be either a triumph or a disaster,
0:54:37 > 0:54:39there were no other options.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00The Battle of Agincourt was extraordinary
0:55:00 > 0:55:02for a variety of reasons.
0:55:02 > 0:55:06The bloody effectiveness of the English archers, tactical blunders
0:55:06 > 0:55:12by the French, the combination of heavy armour and thick mud.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15Thousands died, cut down,
0:55:15 > 0:55:19crushed or drowned in the mud beneath their fallen comrades.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28And against all the odds, Henry was triumphant.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40At the end of the battle, Henry came to about this spot and turned,
0:55:40 > 0:55:45and asked what's the name of that church and they said "Agincourt",
0:55:45 > 0:55:51and he said "Well, every battle must have a name and we shall call this the Battle of Agincourt".
0:55:53 > 0:55:56As part of the peace treaty with France,
0:55:56 > 0:55:58Henry married the king's daughter
0:55:58 > 0:56:02and was declared heir to the French throne.
0:56:04 > 0:56:09Over the plays of Henry IV and Henry V, Shakespeare has told the story
0:56:09 > 0:56:11of two great English Kings.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18In a simple reading, he enshrined a triumphant
0:56:18 > 0:56:22and patriotic view of English history that is cherished today.
0:56:22 > 0:56:27But, Shakespeare being Shakespeare, nothing is simple.
0:56:27 > 0:56:34His re-imagination of history also provides layer upon layer of ambiguity, subversion and doubt.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37To die for one's country is, of course, an honourable death,
0:56:37 > 0:56:41but Shakespeare clearly had his doubts about honour.
0:56:41 > 0:56:45The battles may be won but he doesn't flinch from revealing
0:56:45 > 0:56:48the horror and brutality of war.
0:56:48 > 0:56:52Ordinary people with little to gain and everything to lose
0:56:52 > 0:56:57often lose everything as they pay the blood price for the ambitions
0:56:57 > 0:56:58of their kings.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01And even in the most honourable of causes,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05great leaders can never be certain what the consequences
0:57:05 > 0:57:08of their actions will actually be.
0:57:08 > 0:57:11As the final words of the play make clear,
0:57:11 > 0:57:16Henry is dead by the time he is 35 and all of his achievements
0:57:16 > 0:57:20were lost by the end of his son's reign.
0:57:20 > 0:57:26Henry VI, in infant bands crown'd King Of France and England.
0:57:26 > 0:57:31Did this king succeed? Whose state so many had the managing,
0:57:31 > 0:57:37that they lost France and made his England bleed.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42Isn't this at the heart of what Shakespeare has been saying?
0:57:46 > 0:57:51So, as I walk here in northern France, not far from Agincourt,
0:57:51 > 0:57:55more than 400 years after these plays were written,
0:57:55 > 0:57:59I can't help wondering, "Have we learned anything?"
0:58:40 > 0:58:48Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd