1979–80 BBC Shakespeare Production
This production, broadcast in Britain in 1979 and then in the United States in 1980, was directed by David Giles and starred Jon Finch as King Henry the Fourth; David Gwillim as Henry, Prince of Wales; Anthony Quayle as Sir John Falstaff; Gordon Gostelow as Bardolph; and Bryan Pringle as Pistol.
Henry Fenwick, discussing “The Production” for the BBC booklet that accompanied the first broadcast of the play (19–25), quoted director David Giles as remarking that “Part 2 is very much the death play. It’s full of images of disease all the time. Falstaff is not nearly so spry [as he had been in Part I], still very witty but not nearly as nimble” (19). Jon Finch, playing Henry IV, explained that the producers decided not to overdo the depiction of Henry’s leprosy and syphilis (20) and set designer Don Homfray stressed the fundamental simplicity of the production’s design as a whole (21), while costume designer Odette Barrow explained that medieval laws designating how people of certain classes and occupations were and were not allowed to dress affected the kinds of costumes she created, although she said that she did innovate in some cases, as in the way she chose to clothe Doll Tearsheet in a hand-me-down silk dress (21–22). Barrow also tried to differentiate slightly the costumes of the two justices so that they would not appear to be dressed too much alike, even as she described the challenges and joys of designing a costume for Falstaff that would be both large and flexible. Meanwhile, script editor Alan Shallcross explained that although this play is one of Shakespeare’s longest works, he was easily able to cut extraneous lines from it, particularly in the opening and forest scenes, both of which, he thought, contained too much talk and two little action (22).
The actors themselves offered various comments. Anthony Quayle, playing Falstaff, noted that his character, in this play, is preoccupied with disease and death right from the start (23) and that Falstaff is also morally sicker and more cynical here, especially in the way he treats the military recruits (24). According to Quayle, “Shakespeare knows he’s created two great a character, so he’s got to get rid of him partly because he can’t have a hero who’s going to win the battle of Agincourt still trailing clouds of juvenile delinquency. So I think he quite deliberately in Part 2 gets rid of Falstaff” (24). He added: “I think the audience must love Falstaff to the end but they must also say: ‘Hal had to do that, he really had to!’” (24). David Gwilliam, playing Hal and also commenting on ethical conundrums, explained, “I do think his [Hal’s] dealing with Poins is very cruel. His dealing with Falstaff, on the other hand, destroys Falstaff but there’s no intention to be cruel; there’s just a statement of truth: ‘I can’t associate with you,’ which makes it awful! It’s awful and painful for everybody. But it’s a logical conclusion; it’s what has to happen” (25).
J. C. Bulman and H. R. Coursen, in their 1988 anthology Shakespeare on Television (258–59), quoted from a number of the earliest reviews of this production, which one writer called “[v]ery long and very dull,” adding, “This is the worst kind of Shakespeare in its deadly reverence for the word and its mediocre response to the spirit.” A second commentator wrote that “Gwillim adroitly captures all Hal’s contradictions” and that “Anthony Quayle makes [the part of Falstaff] not only simple, but natural,” while “Jon Finch is also good as Henry IV.” A third reviewer asserted that “Quayle brings the play to life. … [Then] Finch takes hold of [it] with complete authority and never lets it go” (258). A writer for the New York Times declared that although Finch, Quayle, and Gwillim “strive mightily … the thing is generally reluctant to move at more than a snail’s pace,” while yet another critic admired the orchard scenes and another thought that Quayle “convincingly expresses [Falstaff’s] doubleness and ironic conception of himself” and found Michele Dotrice as Lady Percy “unforgettable.” A particularly interesting reaction (quoted at length by Bulman and Coursen) came from William A. Henry in the Boston Globe, who championed both this play and this production, writing that Giles had “surpassed himself in finding the maundering intimacy and pathos of Henry IV, Part 2 without muting any of the roaring laughter.” Henry admired Quayle’s Falstaff but considered Finch “too histrionic in his madness as the king” and David Gwillim “blandly pretty as Prince Hal,” but he concluded that “a wonderful supporting cast lets us feel all the emotion in this unappreciated masterpiece” (259).
Peter Saccio, reviewing the BBC production for the 1982 Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, asserted that “despite a 25% cut in the text, 2H4 has lost least, and emerges for me as the most absorbing of the four productions” of the second tetralogy. He admired the broadcast’s treatment of the play’s “tense private conversations,” saying the “small camera can catch [emotional subtleties] superbly in the juxtaposition of faces” (2). Discussing the different appearances and varied effectiveness of the different actors, Saccio declared at one point that “Finch’s ravaged face confronts the grieving David Gwillim (who has an extraordinarily expressive mouth) with the crown frequently in view,” thereby juxtaposing “[f]ather and son, the crown as glory and as burden, anger and repentance and relief and determination,” so that this moment “powerfully captures what kingship does to kings and heirs.” Saccio thought that at the end of the play, “in the rejection [scene], this rich array of humanity is deliberately reduced to stiff roleplaying. The coronation procession is a parade of walking dummies, shot so as to avoid any real splendor, and Gwillim, his long hair shorn so that none shows beneath the crown, is a mask of kingship saying the obligatory words. Sweaty, quirky, living people (Falstaff and his crew, the crowd) are given their orders and left behind. What kingship does to everyone who comes near it is dryly clear” (2).
Ace Pilkington, in his 1991 book on filmed versions of the history plays, commented that in the BBC Henry IV productions, filming the battle scenes was particularly difficult on a sound stage, requiring many closeups rather than long shots (65). He noted that Jon Finch, as the king, was more often criticized for his performance in the Henry IV plays than he had been in the BBC version of Richard II (70), with one major critic calling it “inadequate” and Pilkington himself agreeing that it was weak (71). But Pilkington reported that Quayle’s performance as Falstaff was much better received, with Pilkington also admiring it (74) and defending it against some objections (75). He emphasized what he considered Falstaff’s insecurities as a self-conscious performer (76), even in his soliloquies, when he performs for viewers at home, often by staring directly into the camera (79). Quoting Quayle’s own view that Hal had no choice but to reject Falstaff, Pilkington commented that the BBC filmmakers “decided to reduce the duration and therefore the warmth and impact of Falstaff’s last performance, to ensure that it is a failure with the television audience in somewhat the same way as it is with the royal one.” Hal needed to be rid of Falstaff to prepare for Henry V, and everyone seemed to agree that Hal had to reject Falstaff and that sympathy for the old man needed to be restrained. Although Pilkington quoted negative assessments of Gwillim’s Hal, he also defended the actor, commenting that “the Hal David Gwillim acted (like both his fathers [Henry IV and Falstaff]) is a performer” (84) whose need to perform may make him sometimes seem less warm than one might wish.
Discussing the BBC production in her 1993 volume on Henry IV, Part II (44–61), Barbara Hodgdon noted that this adaptation’s “emphasis on history taking place in rooms, and most especially in intimate domestic spaces, was intentional” (47), with viewers as “legitimate voyeurs” (48) in a production designed to create a “naturalistic [i.e., realistic] illusion” (49), although Hodgdon did think that Finch sometimes “overtheatricalise[s] his performance” (50). In contrast, she complimented Anthony Quayle, saying that “[f]ar from the over-padded, grotesquely made-up [stereotypical] caricature of the old fat man, Quayle’s Sir John demonstrates the assured craft of a master actor: in several senses, he is this 2 Henry IV’s most authentic feature” (53). She thought that this production turned “Falstaff’s speech back into a present-day equivalent of what Elizabethan audiences may have heard—highly stylised verbal artifice shot through with idiomatic expressions,” partly because “consistently, Quayle’s performance literally releases the rhythms” of the language he speaks (55), allowing him to create a “richly detailed performance [of] extraordinary power.” For this reason, during the rejection scene, Falstaff had to be diminished, which is why Giles filmed him there “as part of an ensemble and denie[d] him a close-up” (57).
James N. Loehlin, in his 2008 book on both parts of Henry IV (180–85), wrote that “Part II in the BBC series is dominated by two diseased men, Anthony Quayle’s Falstaff and Jon Finch’s King Henry.” Loehlin thought that Fallstaff’s “increasingly mean-spirited stratagems for survival and the latter’s furious struggles with mortality establish the atmosphere of the production,” adding that “David Gwillim’s enigmatic Hal, waiting and brooding, makes less of an impression; the rebel scenes are quite perfunctory” (180) and that “the rebellion never seems a significant threat to the kingdom” (181). Commenting on Henry’s physical sickness and on Falstaff’s corresponding moral deterioration (183), Loehlin said that “Finch plays the King’s deathbed scenes for their full dynamic range, rising to rhetorical heights and then collapsing under his illness. His work is showy but compelling: sometimes he seems rather crazed, as though manic or delirious. Much of the scene is filmed in long takes, often in mid-shot, so Finch is able to get some theatrical scope out of the performance” (184). Finding a similarly effective variety in Hal’s performance of the rejection scene (184), Loehlin ended by recommending the BBC’s version of the two Henry IV plays, calling them “intelligent, textually faithful, and fairly conservative versions of the plays” that “seem less dated than some others in the series, and contain a number of solid performances” but are “principally distinguished by Quayle’s detailed study of a shrewd and unscrupulous Falstaff” (185).