You know how it is. You wait for decades, then five come along at once. Henry VI, I mean.
First the Royal Shakespeare Company's three-parter, now Edward Hall and his Propeller company roar into the Watermill at Newbury. Instead of Stratford's Full Monty, Hall and his collaborator Roger Warren follow Boot's the Chemist. They give us three for two: two crisp abridgements of a couple of hours, opening with a non-Shakespearian interpolation, Henry V's dying speech.
All-male: A scene from Rose RageSo is less more? I say yes without hesitation. Hall and Warren have imposed a consistent view, already implied by the hideous Gerald Scarfe 'thing' on the programme cover, continued by the credits to several local butchers, and made explicit by the abattoir set where white-garbed forms, in wolf muzzles, sharpen cleavers. The grating of blade on steel is a constant accompaniment more insistent than the liturgies and secular ditties chanted by the cast.
Shakespeare's Parts I and II are condensed into a single play. Part I suffers most; the French wars contract to the death of Talbot, leaving the battlefield clear for the ghastly, unexplained quarrels of the lords - Gloucester and Beaufort, York and Somerset, the first pair killed off, the second still slugging it out while the cast fling themselves eagerly down-market into the bellowed slogans of Jack Cade's rebellion (very noisy).
The second play, Shakespeare's Part III, storms through the ruthless wars to leave us with the voluptuary Edward as king, and pasty-faced crookback (Richard Clothier) waiting in the wings.
Hall's all-male cast, mostly Propeller regulars, do him proud. Strapping Robert Hands makes an implacable termagant of Margaret of Anjou. The warring lords are strong-voiced, personable and versatile. Matthew Flynn is an admirable sage Humphrey and a vulgar casual Rivers (brother of the upstart Lady Grey), Vincent Leigh suggests the unreliability of Suffolk and Clarence, Tony Bell is clarion-voiced as Cade and Warwick while Guy Williams achieves a striking double as bullying York and politic King Louis. Inspired casting gives us Jonathan McGuinness as Henry VI, rosary in hand, unblinking blue eyes lifted uncomprehending at the world's intrigue and deceit, ineffectual but not guiltless.
Rose Rage
Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon
Nightly until March 17 with double performances (my preference) on Thursdays and Saturdays
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