Henry V

The 25th episode of Bardcast, originally published in September of 2010.

 

Henry V has some of the greatest speeches of all time.  The most famous being the St. Crispin’s Day speech, aka the Band of Brothers speech.  You can listen to our episode about it Here. 

Our next episode is our season finalè, so please give us some questions or subjects to talk about!

(This is actually a pretty good episode, we haven’t upgraded our tech yet, but the editing is solid.  This is the closest Shakespeare comes to doing a war movie, his other plays have wars, but this one is only about a war.  It’s good stuff.  So many good lines.)

The script we used to record this episode is after the break

   1. Introduction
         1. Bardcast
         2. Names
         3. Henry V
   2. play classification/sources
         1. Holinshed’s History of England, etc.
         2. The Famous Victories of Henry V
         3. History
         4. 4th part of the second tetralogy
               1. Richard II, HIV I&II, HV.
               2. First Tetrology: HVI 1,2,3, Richard III
   3. Publications
         1. Performed 1599
         2. printed 1600, copied in 1602 and 1619. They’re terrible
         3. The Folio is the only good copy.
         4. Falstaff may have been in an unpublished copy of the play.
   4. What’s it About?
         1. Henry V
               1. Henry IV I and II are also about Henry V
         2. War
   5. Setting
         1. England and France
               1. England is seen as naturally at war with/ occupying france
                     1. The Hundred Years’ War
               2. Henry V is newly kinged, newly wise and awesome in every way
   6. characters
         1. 3 plot threads
               1. Henry V
                     1. Henry himself
                           1. Everyone agrees that Henry has had a miraculous maturing since the death of Henry IV
                     2. so many nobles
                           1. Duke of Gloucester (Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester) & Duke of Bedford (John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford), Brothers to the King
                           2. Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter, Uncle to the King
                           3. Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, Cousin to the King
                           4. Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and Warwick
                           5. Bishop of Ely and Archbishop of Canterbury
                     3. Earl of Cambridge, Lord Scroop, and Sir Thomas Grey, Traitors
               2. French
                     1. King of France
                           1. Isabel, Queen
                     2. Katherine, Alice
                     3. The Dolphin
                     4. Various Dukes, Constable
                     5. Mayor
                     6. Montjoy, French Herald
                     7. So many french nobles
               3. the lower folk, Pistol, etc.
                     1. International army
                     2. Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris, Jamy, Officers in King Henry’s Army
                     3. Bates, Court, Williams, Soldiers in King Henry’s Army
                     4. Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Boy, Mistress Quickly
               4. Chorus
                     1. Totally sweet
   7. plot
         1. Act I
               1. Chorus
                     1. totally sweet
               2. Boring Church stuff
               3. WS quotes Holinshed verbatim about HV’s right to the French Throne
                     1. Henry V blames Canterbury for the deaths incurred in war if he gives HV justification for war
                     2. Scotland is a force of nature that inevitably invades England
               4. Bees speech
               5. French insult, tennis balls (implies HV is a boy, given to boyish things)
         2. Act II
               1. Chorus
                     1. Totally sweet
               2. Pistol, Nym, boy, etc.
                     1. Have to run off to Falstaff, who is dying
               3. messing with the traitors
               4. The story of Falstaff’s death, commoners are called off to war
               5. The French talk about how awesome HV is
         3. Act III
               1. Chorus
                     1. Totally sweet
               2. Once more into the breach speech
               3. the commoners aren’t eager to attack.
               4. HV persuades the french town to surrender,
                     1. says the deaths of the townsfolk would be on the mayor’s head if he doesn’t surrender
               5. French punning Blearg
               6. French re-assert how great Henry V and the english are. Women of France will mate with the english invaders to “new store france with bastard warriors”
               7. losers fight and complain,
               8. Henry V approves of the hanging of bardolph, basically challenges the french to engage them en route to callais
               9. The French vainly boast about their armour, horses, etc.
         4. Act IV
               1. Chorus
                     1. Awesome
               2. HV goes amongst his men, picks fights
                     1. argues that the king is not responsible for the souls of his men
                     2. Glove trick
               3. The french get ready
               4. St Crispin’s day speech
               5. Pistol captures a guy, there’s some punning
               6. The battle is uncertain, the English decide to kill their prisoners
               7. English win,
                     1. glove shenanigans resolved
                     2. Casualty report: ludicrous
         5. Act V
               1. Chorus
                     1. Awesome
               2. More loser shenanigans (Fluellen makes Pistol eat a leek)
               3. Henry’s creepy seduction of Katherine
   8. Trivia
         1. Crispin Crispian (Oct 25) has not only been forgotten, it no longer exists, The Catholic Church has removed them from the calender, but not from sainthood, due to insufficient evidence of their existed.
         2. The Actual battle was largely the english hiding behind wooden spikes and polearms, French marching under a hail of arrows in the mud.
         3. Recorded numbers are crazy unreliable
               1. populations estimates vary wildly for lots of reasons
               2. actual casualties are “at least” 112 for the english, wikipedia says that people estimate it at 450
               3. regardless, the ratios favor the english
         4. Henry V was fighting in the later phase of the Hundred years War, and had himself made heir to the French throne.
               1. Spent 1415-1422 conquering France
               2. Died of maybe Dysentery in 1422, two months before Charles VI
               3. Made English the language of government in England
         5. His son was an infant when he died, and crowned Henry VI, of England and France
               1. Charles VII, younger brother of the Dauphin in the play, led a successful rebellion with the aid of Joan of Arc.
               2. This and the rest of Henry VI’s reign is covered in Shakespeare’s next 3 histories.
               3. Katharine re-married a Welshman named Owen Tudor, and they started the Tudor line, which led to the kings Henry VII, Henry VIII, and eventually Elizabeth I
   9. themes
         1. War
               1. Who is responsible for the losses incurred in War
               2. glorious war
         2. God Loves the English, especially Henry V
  10. evaluation
         1. some good speeches, but kinda crummy in the bits that are boring
  11. performances/interpretations
         1. Interpretations largely vary based on the sympathy towards War
               1. Famously, Olivier and branagh
               2. Olivier is glorious war in the sun, because it’s WWII, with england invading France, for possibly the last time.
               3. Branagh’s is around Vietnam, so war is dark and gritty and awful, even though the english lost fewer than 30 men.
  12. discussion (Our personal interpretations)
         1. Who is King Henry, Carson style
         2. Jeff
  13. news
  14. signing off
         1. iTunes,
         2. Bardcast.blogspot.com
         3. Next episode is the end of season 1, we’ll talk about how the podcast is doing, and what we’ll be doing in the future, etc.