"Henry V." By William Shakespeare. At the • Alhambra
"No nonsense, and not too much Shakespeare" would appear to be the motto of this production. FaLstaff's deathbed, immortally reported, is consigned from the wings to oblivion. The exposure of the traitors Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, is shorn of drama by the scissors. Much else is lost. In return we are given a theme-song, some tons of armour, an extra cathedral, two cannons, several armies, a real drawbridge, a large though two-dimensional fleet, and the best hoof-beats heard in the West End for years—every- thing, in fine, for which ttre apologetic Chorus implies that Shakespeare hankered. On the whole it is not a bad bargain.
Colonel Stanley Bell, the producer, has frankly treated Shakespeare's play as the scenario for a tattoo. Lae Fluellen, he knows that it will not do to neglect the etiquettes of war. This game of French and English, played out in two camps and two courts, gains enormously in effect if both the soldiers and the courtiers appear to know their business. At the Alhambra they do. Formalities are observed, orders are given, with a professional air ; those ceremonies and that sword-drill really do mean something. At Agincourt we never forget that Henry is a king at the head of an invading army. We ought, of course, to be content, as Shakespeare's audiences were, with a campaign in which the sieges and the pikes and all the army save the leading section of fours are mere figures of speech. But it is nice, for once, to have things made easy for us.
Mr. Godfrey Tearle's Harry is a vigorous and accomplished performance. If he is inclined at times to take himself a little too seriously—to appear a trifle smug—that is probably the author's fault ; he never fails in dignity or fire. As Katharine, Miss Yvonne Arnaud makes her small facetious scenes seem oases of the most brilliant wit in a desert of slap- stick and sabre-rattling. Mr. Basil Gill's Exeter could not be bettered, and Mr. Hay Petrie struggles gallantly to save the comic scenes, which are both staged and played with a curious dreariness.
You ought not to miss this Henry V. As my neighbour said to his neighbour ; "It's better than the Aldershot Tattoo. You don't have to worry about the weather."
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