Henry V (play) - Performance History

Performance History

A tradition, impossible to verify, holds that Henry V was the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre in the spring of 1599—the Globe would have been the "wooden O" mentioned in the Prologue—but Shapiro argues that the Chamberlain's Men were still at The Curtain when the work was first performed, and that Shakespeare himself probably acted the Chorus. In 1600 the first printed text states that the play had been played "sundry times." The earliest performance for which an exact date is known, however, occurred on 7 January 1605, at Court.

Samuel Pepys saw a Henry V in 1664—but it was written by Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, not by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's play returned to the stage in 1723, in an adaptation by Aaron Hill.

The longest running production of the play in Broadway history was the staging starring Richard Mansfield in 1900 which ran for 54 performances. Other notable stage performances of Henry V include Charles Kean (1859), Charles Alexander Calvert (1872), Walter Hampden (1928), and Ty Jones (2011) in an all black cast.

Major revivals in London during the 20th century include:

• 1900 Lyceum Theatre, Lewis Waller as Henry
• 1914 Shaftesbury Theatre, F.R. Benson as Henry
• 1916 His Majesty's Theatre, Martin Harvey as Henry
• 1920 Strand Theatre, Murray Carrington as Henry
• 1926 Old Vic Theatre, Baliol Holloway as Henry
• 1928 Lyric, Hammersmith, Lewis Casson as Henry (Old Vic Company)
• 1931 Old Vic Theatre, Ralph Richardson as Henry
• 1934 Alhambra Theatre, Godfrey Tearle as Henry
• 1936 Ring, Blackfriars, Hubert Gregg as Henry
• 1937 Old Vic Theatre, Laurence Olivier as Henry
• 1938 Drury Lane Theatre, Ivor Novello as Henry
• 1951 Old Vic Theatre, Alec Clunes as Henry
• 1955 Old Vic Theatre, Richard Burton as Henry
• 1960 Mermaid Theatre, William Peacock as Henry
• 1960 Old Vic Theatre, Donald Houston as Henry
• 1965 Aldwych Theatre, Ian Holm as Henry (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• 1972 Aldwych Theatre, Timothy Dalton as Henry (Prospect Theatre Company), also in 1974 in Roundhouse Theatre
• 1976 Aldwych Theatre, Alan Howard as Henry (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• 1985 Barbican Theatre, Kenneth Branagh as Henry (Royal Shakespeare Company)

In 2012 the Shakespeare's Globe's 2012 Globe to Globe festival Henry V was the UK entry, one of 37 and the only one performed in spoken English. Jamie Parker performed the role of Henry.

On British television the play has been performed as follows:

• 1951 Clement McCallin as Henry, Marius Goring as Chorus, Willoughby Gray as Pistol
• 1953 Colin George as Henry, Toby Robertson as Chorus, Frank Windsor as Pistol
• 1957 John Neville as Henry, Bernard Hepton as Chorus, Geoffrey Bayldon as Pistol
• 1960 Robert Hardy as Henry, William Squire as Chorus, George A. Cooper as Pistol
• 1979 David Gwillim as Henry, Alec McCowen as Chorus, Bryan Pringle as Pistol
• 2012 Tom Hiddleston as Henry, John Hurt as Chorus, Paul Ritter as Pistol