It has Julian Glover in the title role and his real life son, Jamie Glover, in the role of Henry IV's son, Prince Hal. Julian Glover has had a long career playing villains. He played villains on Doctor Who, in The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and various other things. Among the many disappointing things about the last couple seasons of Game of Thrones was the abrupt killing off of his character that had been subtly built up to be a secret badass over the first five seasons. He's so good at playing a villain, though, he makes for a somewhat simplistic Henry IV. One of the interesting points about the play is the ambiguity of the King's moral position. Who's being rash and irresponsible, Hotspur or the King? Does the fighting start because Hotspur wouldn't turn over his prisoners to the King's representative or because the King was being too inflexible? With Glover in the role, it seems unambiguously the latter. Alan Cox as Hotspur actually comes across as uncommonly affable. I really enjoyed the scene where he and his cohorts are hanging out with Glyndwr and the woman starts speaking in Welsh. It's oddly relaxing.
Jamie Glover as Hal is not memorable. Doctor Who fans may know him for playing William Russell in An Adventure in Time and Space. In this Henry IV, his voice comes off as weak, like he's not used to raising it. On the other hand, Richard Griffiths is a fantastic Falstaff. I really wish there were some video of him in the role.
The Shakespeare Network has a lot of Shakespeare plays in audio format. I was also listening to the Romeo and Juliet from the series which has Joseph Fiennes as Romeo and David Tennant as Mercutio, which was mostly frustrating because I kept dearly wishing their roles were reversed. Well, it probably would've been best for Joseph Fiennes not to have been in the project at all.
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