[In the following review of a 2000 staging of Henry IV, Part 1 at The Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Wall notes that this intimate venue lent itself more to the subtleties of Desmond Barrit's Falstaff than to the volubility of David Troughton's Henry IV or Adam Levy's energetic Hotspur.]

What sort of stage do Shakespeare's Histories need? When the RSC moved into the Barbican in 1982, Trevor Nunn directed Henry IV as an elaborate demonstration of the new theatre's physical possibilities, with three-storey structures like Dickensian warrens giving way to deep open space for the battle scenes. Of the four history plays offered at Stratford this summer, only Henry V is to be given in the main house, Richard II and both parts of Henry IV being diverted to its smaller-scale venues. Michael Attenborough's new production of the first part of Henry IV (Part Two follows in June) needs to convince us that its allocation to the congenial but limited Swan brings legitimate rewards and isn't just a matter of logistical convenience.

David Troughton delivers Henry's opening state-of-the-nation speech with the clarity and force that has made him a Stratford stalwart, but he also sets too loud an example; the acoustics of the Swan don't need such over-projection, and it inhibits subtlety. The main causes of the unease with which this head wears its crown (such as his reluctant admiration for Hotspur, who seems to embody the virtues his own son lacks) are clearly signalled, but Troughton's relentless attack gets in the way of a more complex rendering of Henry's paternal and political anxieties; he's mastered the part but hasn't, as yet, got inside the person.

The tendency to equate maximum effect with excessive volume, especially in matters heroical, undermines Adam Levy's Hotspur. It is true that hyperbole is Hotspur's element and his impetuosity is written into the role, but, when he talks of plucking bright Honour from the pale-faced moon, he means what he says; that is what makes him dangerous. The inspiriting power of the chivalric ideal is not something which young modern actors find it easy to convey, but to do so needs more than fortissimo displays of temperament. Hotspur's dying but grandiloquent phrases—“time, that takes survey of all the world, must have a stop”—are thrown away in a flurry of physical energy.

When it comes to the showdown between Hotspur and Hal and the other alarums in Act Five, the Swan's cramped dimensions are less of a disadvantage than might have been feared. The thrust stage means that the audience sees the action close-up (in the way that television has conditioned us to), and what is lost in spectacle is gained in proximity; the front rows are not for the nervous. But although the production manages such difficulties well, the intimacy of the auditorium naturally favours the play's more domestic passages. Quiet moments such as the Welsh song of Glendower's daughter before parting from Mortimer—which neither he nor we can understand—are a relief from the prevailing bluster. Even more effective is the chat (Act Three, Scene Three) between Falstaff and Bardolph, as they wait for Hal to arrive; they have nothing to say to each other which they haven't often said before, but the very predictability of their lines, delicately underplayed by Desmond Barrit and Arthur Cox, provide a saving touch of overheard ordinariness.

It was to be expected that the tavern scenes would benefit most from the Swan's environment. At the Barbican in 1982, a number of actors dropped their background tasks to form an audience for Falstaff's game of fathers and sons; at the Swan, we are near enough to take their place. As the Prince of Wales, William Houston, smiling boyishly, seems at first to indicate too besotted an infatuation with Falstaff's outrageousness, but his reply at the end of the game to Falstaff's plea not to be banished when Hal is King—“I do, I will”—is chillingly measured. After this, Houston begins to reveal Hal's latent power; his victory over Hotspur shows a convincing Henry V (who he begins to play in August) in the making.

On this occasion, however, the real hero of Shrewsbury is Falstaff. Desmond Barrit's knight is “portly” (his word) rather than obese, but, although obliged to consort with riff-raff, remains a gentleman. His relationship with the audience—easily made in this theatre—is comfortable but not overfamiliar. He relishes invective, but not too fruitily. A kind of refinement hangs about him, and he can't entirely disguise some intimations of sincerity. His manifest affection for Hal compares favourably with Henry IV's self-regarding admonitions, and, although adroit in turning things to his advantage, he isn't always ahead of the game; he is genuinely caught out over his cowardice at Gadshill, and understandably frightened by military thugs like Douglas. As Barrit asks them, the progressive questions which make up Falstaff's catechism on Honour (“What is Honour? A Word”, etc) develop an almost elegiac authority which no one else equals. His cry “Give me life, which if I can save, so” establishes him as the battlefield's true philosopher. It looks as though his rejection, at the end of Part Two, will be a serious loss.