Shakespeare shapes what he does. I don't think that, for example, the Henry VI plays have a huge cast of speaking characters. So they speak to the capabilities of the acting company probably at that time. The fact that the king is so weak plays into an acting style which doesn't have a central star actor. And that's different from the plays that we get later on. Partly that moved towards a more character driven version of history is also a move towards a morecharacter driven kind of performance style.
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