The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, including his death and the coronation of King Henry the Fifth

As the saga of Henry IV continues in Part II, we see surprisingly little of the King as played by Jon Finch. The rebels who were not part of the battle that insured his crown in Part I are busy plotting away again to possibly get another insurgency going. And Prince Hal who came to his father's aid and literally saved his life on the battlefield and killed Hotspur in single combat has fallen back on his dissolute ways and conniving with people in low places, chiefly an old braggart Sir John Falstaff.

Henry's got three other sons so the succession for the House of Lancaster is assured, but his oldest Prince Hal as played very winningly by David Gwillim is back doing his drinking and wenching and lowdown behavior as we saw him in Part I. Second eldest son John Of Lancaster seems more fit for the job of king, but it's the future Henry V that is in line. Of such rivalries kingdoms have fallen apart and eventually this one does, but not for another 20 years or so.

Anthony Quayle's Falstaff is seen here as a bit more a shady character than he was in Part I. He's got a few things cooking and he has hopes that when Hal becomes king he will remember his bosom companions of his partying days. What a shock Quayle is in for.

Though he's seen less Jon Finch really comes into his own in the title role. Henry IV is getting older and very conscious of his mortality and worries about his kingdom if his idiot son succeeds. A bit of promise shown in Part I seems to have been overtaken by Hal's desire to party and party. In Finch we see a portrait of a man in physical and mental agony and maybe questioning did I really do the right thing by usurping Richard II. Finch played this character in the three successive plays and we see him grow and change in the role. It's one of the biggest strengths of the BBC Shakespeare series.

This play comes a bit short of the excellence of Richard II and Henry IV Part I, but it's still outstanding theater as presented to us by the BBC.

Several people have commented on the strong performance Jon Finch gives in the BBC versions of Richard II, Henry IV pt. 1 or Henry IV pt. 2. On first watching I thought Finch an odd choice as Bolingbroke opposite Jacobi's Richard, since Richard needs to have the more elegance and grace of the two for the play to work well. But Jacobi manages an effeteness that works surprisingly well against Finch's robustness. As the play goes on, it's Finch's nuanced performance that catches the attention. He sustains the performance powerfully and subtly through the 3 play sequence - interestingly, a previous commenter saw King Henry as focal point of the Henry IV plays with Falstaff and Prince Hal at the margin, a reversal the usual critical take on the play and the impression it makes when read. Individually each of the plays have excellent performances (Jacobi's Richard, Gray's York, Quayle's Falstaff) but it's all three taken together that achieve the extraordinary, with Finch's development from calculating ambition to success that fails to satisfy to diseased and guilt-tormented disillusionment, at its center. This is one of the more memorable Shakepearean performances I've seen on film. As for production values ("stagey" comments), though the budget was low it was spent in effective ways, excellently researched and executed costuming and simple, but appropriate, sets. Production and acting are "stage"/technique-y, but this works with the plays' larger than life characters and language especially the rhymed verse of RII. These actors speak the difficult language admirably. The three plays, along with Measure for Measure and perhaps Hamlet, are the best in the BBC Shakespeare series, all in all.

The movie has a really good cast that understands its lines and knows how to speak Shakespeare. From the realistic performance of the dying King Henry, to the characteristically bumbling Falstaff, to the brave and valiant Prince Hal, I thoroughly enjoyed their performances.

This version is surprisingly good as a stand-alone movie - although it is based completely on the play (a third part out of four), it manages to give the viewer an understanding of what was before it and what is to come. It helps to know the background or have read the play, but I didn't find it necessary to read along to their lines in order to understand what was happening.

I most enjoyed the scene of the death of the King and least enjoyed the idiotic messing around of Falstaff - but I have to give credit to the director; those were the very feelings I had about the play. Overall, it manages to be more than a decent interpretation of Shakespeare and a good way to spend two hours of your time.

The DVD, though, is not so great: the sound is pretty bad, the chapters are arranged annoyingly, and it occasionally flickers (not due to my player). I recommend watching the VHS, an inherently inferior format though it mostly is.

It's remarkable that the 2007 reviewer has characterized this production as "unabridged." From beginning to end, large portions of the text have been omitted from this production. Some of the excisions are well-judged, whereas quite a few others are dubious; my main complaint about this otherwise excellent production is that so much of the text has been left out.

One other complaint, which applies to Part 1 as well as to Part 2, is that Anthony Quayle was not fat and was in that respect decidedly unsuited to perform the role of Falstaff. His acting in that role is superb, but all the jokes about his huge girth are peculiarly incongruous -- as a result of which the humorousness of Falstaff is attenuated.

This video features a towering performance by Anthony Quayle as Falstaff that will live in your memory.

99% of actors want to be loved by the audience, even the villains. The part of Falstaff is written with so many opportunities for funny tableaux, then finishing off with a heart-rending bid for tears, that it brings out the shameless exhibitionist in just about anyone who's ever tried the role.

Anthony Quayle does something completely different. He constructs a Falstaff with top, bottom and sides, with every action and reaction motivated as something the man might do, rather than as yet another chance to seduce the audience with a cute bit of business, or as the Gaels refer to it, shtik.

Given Anthony Quayle's vinegary, often bilious stage persona, the result is a Falstaff who calculates, ruthlessly exploits all around him, relies on his charm to lie his way out of scrapes, and thoroughly deserves his humiliation at the end.

In other productions, Falstaff is often an endearing Santa Claus-like scamp who is wronged by a callous and arbitrary King (see Orson Welles in the wonderful "Chimes at Midnight"). However, as embodied by Anthony Quayle, we accept that it is absolutely necessary and understandable that Hal reject Falstaff. We feel for the rogue knight and regret his collapse, but we also know that the new King is right to do what he does. In this way, Quayle's Falstaff is remarkable.

The rest of the proceedings are not quite on this level. Jon Finch's performance as Henry IV was sturdy in Part 1, but unravels along with the King's health in Part 2. When Finch errs, he does on the side of moistness, and much his work here strikes me as squishy and sentimental. Your mileage may differ, but I grew impatient with his less-than-royal wallowing.

Otherwise, I don't know whether to admire Gordon Gostelow's Bardolph more for his acting or his makeup - either way he's quite a picture. And Bryan Pringle's Pistol seems almost more Dickensian than Shakespearean. Brenda Bruce continues to bring out the humanity in Mistress Quickly, and Frances Cuka's Doll Tearsheet is surprisingly contemporary.

Finally, an impatient note about the sound. With all the attention paid to restoring the image of a 25-year old video for DVD release, it's a crime that the quality of the audio was not remedied as well. It's not that people upstage are more distant from the microphone (which they are), it's that the volume level is all over the place, and it's difficult to find a setting that will not have you leaping out of your seat to fix roaring or whispering, sometimes both in the same sentence. Keep your remote handy.