Page 141 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book

Inhabitants of Great Britain. So that’s cool. Go and check it out if you’re in

the area.

Ian McKellen as Falstaff and Toheeb Jimoh as Prince Hal in Player Kings at
the Noel Coward. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I haven’t seen Player Kings at the Noel Coward theatre yet, which is why I

haven’t mentioned it. When I have, I’ll tell you what I think, but when it
comes to Henry IV Parts One and Two (the show is a conflation of the two
plays, by visionary director Robert Icke, and stars Ian McKellen as Falstaff)

my general opinion on the vast majority of the tavern scenes (where Prince
Hal - played here by Toheeb Jim - doesn’t appear) is that they can be excised

in toto without having the slightest impact on the text except to make it
mercifully shorter.

I feel like Shakespeare mostly just wrote them to keep a popular comedian on

the stage, so that more people would buy tickets. The great Anthony Sher
couldn’t sell them to me in Gregory Doran’s eye-wateringly dull production
at the Barbican in 2014, so if Ian McKellen can do it then my admiration for

him will genuinely know no bounds. Watch this space.