Henry V

We booked Henry V at the Globe, as we hadn’t seen it on stage, before we went away to Portugal and Spain. When we got home, the first day I had Marc and Tom to look after, which was lovely because we had started to miss the family, and then the next day was the festival of washing. Then the next day was the trip to London and the Globe. So it all seemed a bit hectic and we felt we might have taken on too much. But the timing was perfect, because when  I was looking after Marc, we were in the town centre and there was obviously something going off. So we hung around for a few moments, and saw the Mercian Regiment, just returned from Afghanistan, marching through town. There was a band and the ram mascot, and all these young men in battle dress, and Marc was entranced. He was marching along with them, swinging his arms, loving it. It absolutely brought the tears to my eyes, to think that such a short time ago, these young men had been little boys like Marc, but now, what have they seen and been through?  And quite a number didn’t come home, or came home seriously, life changingly, injured.

The crowd was applauding them and there was the odd cheer, but I’m sure, if you’d asked people, they would have said that the army shouldn’t be in Afghanistan at all.  A good number of people in the crowd were obviously relatives and they were beaming with pride and near to tears.

So then to the Globe. And what is so wonderful was that you got all the same emotions as watching the troops march through Nottingham – that mixture of pride in courage and achievement, and comradeship, and the sheer glamour of  soldiery and war (from a distance), with an uneasy awareness that it isn’t  justifiable, and that men are killing and dying horribly for nothing worthwhile.

The timing was perfect. And Shakespeare’s marvellous ambiguities were just allowed to stand. The production didn’t have an “interpretation” forced onto it.

I’ve got to mention Jamie Parker as Henry, although the entire cast was terrific. We hardly even noticed the discomfort of the seats.  Last year we had a Falstaff couple of days and saw the two Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor, so it was particularly satisfying to complete the story.