“HENRY IV” PART I

Press, Volume C, Issue 29498, 27 April 1961, Page 17

“HENRY IV” PART I

Christ’s College Production There will always be those critics of Shakespeare who consider that any attempt to cut or edit the playwright’s work in any way cannot but end in disaster. Indeed, they could say that the audience which saw the Christ's College Dramatic Society’s production of “Henry IV. Part I." in the Museum Lecture Theatre last evening received but a halfpenny worth of bread for an intolerable amount of sack—or in other words, too little history and too much comedy. This was true enough, but. on the other hand, the sack was good wine indeed.

Having to handle a cast of schoolboys, the producer, Yvette Bromley, was com-

pletely ruthless, and tried to “cut’’ the play as much as possible without losing the sense of the dramatic action. In doing this, she was not wholly successful. The comic scenes, while still magnificent in themselves, are only a small part of the main business of the play—the conflict between the houses of Percy and Bolingbroke. represented by Harry Hotspur and Prince Hal. and the latter’s growth to the maturity of one fit to inherit the throne. *

Last evening, this main dramatic theme was forced to take second place, so that it was the spirit of comedy rather than of history that hovered over all. This meant that a great deal of the smoothness of the dramatic rhythm of the play was lost. Scene followed scene rather jerkily, and it was often difficult to relate the parts to the whole. Falstaff

The noted critic, A. C. Bradley, has linked Falstaff, together with Hamlet lago, and Cleopatra, as Shakespeare’s greatest creations. As Falstaff, D. S. Telford showed himself completely at home. Perhaps at times his portrayal smacked a little too much of George Robey, but in the main he played the rollicking, jovial knight with his decaying dignity, his bombast, and his sentimentality. to perfection. J. B Maling played Prince Hal with the air of a coldeyed, disillusioned teddy-boy. who feels he has perceived the innate foolishness of old age. Indeed, he was a little too open in his scornfulness.

but he did much to brini: out the attitudes expressec in his first cynical, calculat-

ing soliloquy. As Hotspur, the noble, courageous representative of a dying chivalry, J. D. Atkinson was not quite powerful enough. He was too meek, too reflective, seemingly incapable of the great outbursts of righteous indignation the part demanded.

Other leading roles were taken by R. L. Baker, a softsnoken. politic Thomas Percy, W. Saunders, as Glendower, with a very good, insistent Welsh lilt, and R. T. Astley, who played a strong Lady Percy Hotspur to a not-so-powerful husband. —DJ.O.C.