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Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets

In Our Time: Culture

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Henry the Sixth - A New Beginning

Shakespeare started his tetralogy with henry the fifth and finished it with richard the third. One consequence of that is you don't get the bad, the bad henry and the good one in the same play. The reformation sort of happens in between the two plays. When we meet him again, he's alread a, you know, gravely listening to this long, long speech about the salic law. But what you saw was the extent to which the henry the sixth plays mark this appalling decline down to the horror that richard the Third had caused. And the casting choices that he made brought you right back to the henry fifth at start that.

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