The way Shakespeare's done it, I think it's really curious. The Reformation sort of happens in between the two plays. When we meet him again, he's already gravely listening to this long, long speech about the Salik Law. He started his etrallurgy with Henry V and finished it with Richard III. But what you saw was the extent to which Henry VI plays marked this appalling decline down to the horror that Richard III. And the casting choices that he made brought you right back to the end of the fifth at the start. We've in a particular order, the box set exactly.
In the first of two programmes marking In Our Time's 20th anniversary on 15th October, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's versions of history, starting with the English Plantagenets. His eight plays from Richard II to Richard III were written out of order, in the Elizabethan era, and have had a significant impact on the way we see those histories today. In the second programme, Melvyn discusses the Roman plays.
The image above is of Richard Burton (1925 - 1984) as Henry V in the Shakespeare play of the same name, from 1951
With
Emma Smith
Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Gordon McMullan
Professor of English at King’s College London and Director of the London Shakespeare Centre
And
Katherine Lewis
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Huddersfield
Producer: Simon Tillotson