[In the following review, Macaulay praises the 2003 National Theatre staging of Henry V directed by Nicholas Hytner, especially the production's “triumph of colourblind casting” and Penny Downie as a “modern, female conception” of the Chorus; however, the critic notes that the “nowness” of the production “tips over a few times into the too-gimmicky.”]

If Nicholas Hytner's National Theatre season continues as it has begun, we shall be calling him the great showman of our day. First with Jerry Springer—the Opera and now with his own staging of Henry V, he has presented the two new must-see shows in London theatre today. Not, I hasten to add, the two best, but the two buzziest: the shows that every serious theatregoer should soon have seen, the shows to which one should send people who aren't sure what theatre can be, the shows that should keep people keenly talking as long as they run.

They can afford to. This Henry V inaugurates a six-month (May-November) Travelex season in the National's largest Olivier auditorium, in which most seats will be Pounds 10; and I testify that I have paid more money to see far duller stagings of this and other plays. You can—should—argue with this Henry V: it's so “now” that it tips over a few times into the too-gimmicky, so “now” that occasionally it draws you away from as well as, at other moments, deep into Shakespeare's language, so “now” that, apart from making you discuss whether it is fair to Shakespeare, it also makes you oddly heated about whether it is a fair account of the politics of warfare in the 21st century.

The “nowness” is a hair-raising thrill from the moment Penny Downie comes briskly but casually on to the stage like a secretary, in cardigan and reading specs and clutching a pile of books and—just as we're thinking “Who's she?”—launches into “O for a muse of fire”. This modern, female conception of the Chorus is a brilliant stroke, beautifully sustained by Downie, and yet what Hytner reveals, unnervingly, is how often the Chorus says one thing and then Shakespeare shows us the opposite. “Now all the youth of England are on fire,” she says—and we see Nym and Bardolph sitting bored in the pub, flicking through the TV channels in discontent. On one of those channels is Henry V, giving his presidential broadcast.

So much is going on in it that one hardly has time to notice that this production is also a triumph of colourblind casting. The Royal Shakespeare Company has already given us a black actor playing one of Shakespeare's English kings, beautifully; but Hytner has begun his National Theatre regime by giving us not just a black actor—Adrian Lester—playing the most heroic and popular of those English kings, the Shakespearian king who most embodies English patriotism, he also gives us a radical account of Henry V that frequently goes against—exposes—the charisma and the glamour customarily associated with this role.

It is in Lester's King Henry above all that this production sends us back to the text. He is Henry the politician, Henry the speaker of soundbites, Henry the ruthless sacrificer of old friends, Henry the perfect master of image and spin. And he is Henry the chameleon. Of him, as of our political leaders today, we keep asking: Who is he really? The play keeps making us answer differently. He speaks the great “Upon the King” soliloquy in a frenzy of frustration; and then he prays “O God of battles” in his most genuinely vulnerable moment in the whole play. Now, at last, we've seen him at his lowest when alone; and next comes the revealing miracle, when he returns within moments at his most inspiring, to deliver “We few, we happy few” with irresistible naturalness. But Hytner reminds us that, with Shakespeare, there is always an opposite side. Even Henry's tears are preserved on “Battle of Agincourt” video merchandise; and when Henry's vulnerability returns as he woos the French Princess, it is disconcertingly mixed with ruthlessness. The French losses are movingly apparent, the Princess's reluctance is vivid, but Henry sweeps all before him. Cleverly revelatory, this Henry V reminds us just how much Shakespeare has anticipated our own times. He's even anticipated our own ambivalence.