Henry V Archives

All the theatre I saw in 2016, ranked

Posted on January 2, 2017January 7, 2019

(nb: most of this was written on the train on New Year’s Eve, so “last night” = Dec 30^th.)

In 2016 I saw 41 plays (and three staged readings, which were interesting but it feels unfair to put in with the rest because they’re not supposed to be fully realised pieces of theatre). Drunk Theatre stalwart Louisa and I tried to clear out the bottle-ends in the booze cabinet before the New Year, and carried out the immense task of force-ranking all our 2016 plays with Post-It notes. (for the record if you are also looking to clear out your drinks bottles, the “Monkey Gland”, a 1920s? cocktail involving grenadine and absinthe, was surprisingly all right.)

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“Henry V” at the Unicorn Theatre, London

Posted on November 8, 2013January 7, 2019

henry v unicorn ft

Man, I thought I was CURSED this week. A series of minor but deeply annoying misfortunes has befallen me and, although I’m not into woo-woo astrology, on the third straight day of terrible things happening I Googled “Is Mercury in retrograde?” and the answer was yes, yes it is. I’m going to therefore use that to explain every bad thing that has happened this week.

After three days of phone-breaking, flat-locking-out and things-being-stolen, Ewan knew exactly what would cheer me up: Shakespeare! Drunk Shakespeare! Aimed at children! Read more...

A Very Plantagenet Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 13, 2013January 7, 2019

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Don’t worry! If you haven’t found a card yet that expresses how you really feel about your partner, maybe one of these Plantagenet valentines will help:

valentine henry vi margaret

Globe to Globe: Henry IV, Part One in Mexican Spanish (Mexico)

Posted on May 15, 2012January 7, 2019

I think I’ve figured out a winning formula for Globe to Globe productions.

It goes something like: start with an energetic all-company dance to regional music, with lots of drumming; rip through the scenes with lots of talking, including cutting monologues (unless they’re comic monologues); continue drumming and dancing for scene changes (or just randomly in the middle of scenes); don’t slow down for anything.