Customer Reviews

Henry IV, Part One (Arkangel Shakespeare) (Pt. 1)

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These ArkAngel Audio CDs really convey the vibrance of Shakespeare's world complete with bawdy screams, clinking glasses in taverns, birds chirping in the forest, etc. It's "Shakespeare for people who hate Shakespeare" in the sense that when you listen to these CDs the meanings of lines and the essence of the play comes across easily by virtue of the inflections in the voices and the circumstances.

Shakespeare is so often mistaught in schools, "overcooked," as it were, in that the endless stream of complexities in individual lines are overanalyzed to death before anyone has developed an overall sense of what's going on in the play. These CDs will give you that sense and much more. The guy who plays Falstaff had me laughing out loud. Also, using a CD like this is not "cheating" -- just the opposite, it is the *right* way to approach Shakespeare because these are plays! They are meant, first and foremost, to be performed, not read. For students I would recommend listening *first* to get an overall sense, then going back and reading, then listening again. Reading will be much more productive and fun, I imagine.

In this Arkangel procuction of 'Henry IV Part One', Richard Griffiths makes a pretty good Falstaff (sounding a bit like Leo McKern), though a bit too placid-drunk, not quite enough fire in his vast belly. Hal, played by Jamie Glover (the real life son to his father in the play, Henry IV as played by Julian Glover), initially comes across as foppish, but in the early scene where he compares himself to the sun allowing himself to be covered by clouds, reveals he can handle the complexity of the character. Hal, indeed, is one of the strangest creations in literature - a coal-biter (a ne'er-do-well who later makes good), but a DELIBERATE one. He knows from the outset what he is doing.

Alan Cox is an excellent Hotspur, full of aggressive vitality. I doubt I could ever listen to another production of this play without mentally hearing Hotspur's lines the way Cox delivers them. His "O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth" is especially poignant. The argument between Hotspur and the Welsh warrior-poet Owen Glendower ("I say the earth did shake when I was born") is one of Shakespeare's most brilliant passages, and here it is handled well. The too-impatient Hotspur can't abide exaggeration of any kind - "mincing poetry", he calls it. The Welsh song sung by Glendower's daughter is completely enchanting - and as I may have mentioned in other Arkangel reviews, the music is one of the best reasons to hear these productions. As with Arkangel's 'Richard II', 'Henry IV Part One' has an excellent score.