Ian McKellen - 'one of the world's greatest actors' (Times) - plays Falstaff in a new version of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, adapted by the award-winning writer and director Robert Icke.
A divided country, leadership crumbling, corruption in the air. Welcome to England.
Hal wasn't born to be king. Only now, it seems, he will be. His father longs for him to leave behind his friends in the taverns of Eastcheap, most notably the infamous John Falstaff. War is on the horizon. But will Hal ever come good?
Bringing together Shakespeare's two great history plays (Henry IV, parts 1 and 2), Player Kings will reign over London’s West End for twelve weeks only – playing at the Noël Coward Theatre from April 2024.
__Assisted Performances__
Captioned Performance: Saturday 1 June 2024 - 2.30pm
Audio described Performance: Saturday 15 June 2024 - 2.30pm
Is that enough of a reason to catch what could possibly be McKellen’s farewell to the West End? I hesitate to say yes because Icke’s marathon modern-day Shakespeare production — which runs to nearly four hours — yields such mixed results. One or two of the performances are fiery: as Hotspur, Samuel Edward-Cook (who doubles as Pistol) delivers martial swagger and raw machismo, while Clare Perkins is a raucous Mistress Quickly. Others fade into the background; warlords are presented with the air of weary bureaucrats. And Hildegard Bechtler’s unassuming set, dominated by expanses of plain brickwork, with the actors pulling back drab curtains to reveal new scenes, provides little to distract the eye.
At the thumping heart of it all is McKellen’s fabulous Falstaff. This lord of misrule, an aristocrat and petty criminal slumming it with the working class, is a slothful, wheezing, stinking creature of appetite, a stained vest straining over his ample, quivering gut (McKellen is extravagantly but persuasively padded). He seems to have something perpetually in his mouth – drool, phlegm, an unwholesome morsel of the greasy fast food that he crams in there – and each line has the flavour of some self-serving scheme inching its maggoty way out of his booze-soaked brain.
2024 | West End |
West End |
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