Tamara Harvey to direct RSC’s Henry V with Alfred Enoch as king

The Royal Shakespeare Company is mounting a new production of Henry V in Stratford directed by Tamara Harvey, who will be the first woman to direct the play for the RSC. The company will comprise 11 men and eight women, and Alfred Enoch is announced to play the king. The piece argues that Shakespeare’s history plays have pressing contemporary relevance, raising questions about good governance and the difficulty of deposing a tyrant.

Henry V is singled out as particularly timely amid a world in which the threat of war feels real, and the play is described as having a chameleon-like quality that shifts with cultural and political winds. The play’s meaning has been refracted through many past productions and films: Laurence Olivier’s 1944 movie was seen as a wartime contribution, Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film responded to Vietnam’s shadow, and stage versions from the 1964 Stratford cycle to Michael Boyd’s 2007 production have emphasised the work’s ambivalence and the need to deglamorise war.

Other notable stagings cited include Adrian Noble’s 1984 production, Ron Daniels’s 1997 version that began and ended at the Cenotaph, Edward Hall’s 2000 production, and Nicholas Hytner’s 2003 National Theatre production shadowed by Iraq. The key question for the new Stratford version, the writer says, will be how contemporary events are refracted through the play.

Key Topics

Culture, Royal Shakespeare Company, Henry V, Tamara Harvey, Alfred Enoch