Hollow Crown Afterthoughts

Now the Hollow Crown is over, here's a personal summing up:

Best cinematography: Richard II is the uncontested winner. They really overcame any sense of theatre staticness by using those landscapes in a majorly fashion.

Best performance: Sorry, Hiddlestans. Jeremy Irons wins. Because Henry IV, as opposed to Hal/Henry V, isn't a main part, as opposed to Falstaff or Richard II isn't flashy, and often feels like a walk-on, but Irons took what's a unflashy supporting past (never mind the title of the play) and made it central and fascinating. All the awards, please.

Best production twist not actually in Shakespeare: Chorus is Owen Tudor Falstaff's boy. (Runner up, because it's practically likeadeuce fanfic: Percy and Kate have back to wall sex during the Lady Mortimer sings scene.)

(Production twist most likely to enrage shippers but my heartless self is on board with it: Aumerle as one of Richard's killers. )

Actor doing the most with the least amount of lines: Maxine Peake as Doll Tearsheet. No wonder meri wants Doll fanfic. I loved practically everything she did, from the "I can't read, idiot!" look she gave Hal in Henry IV, 1 when he first wanted her to read out the papers in Falstaff's purse to her scene with Falstaff in Henry IV, 2 with its swinging back and forth between tenderness and knife pulling.

Best thing to hope from all the new folk young Master Hiddleston brought to the Shakespeare fandom: lots of fanfic, of course. I mean, half of it will be Hal/Poins which I won't read because I can't stand Poins, but there's bound to be some interesting stuff in the rest. If anyone does their research and figures out Katherine is actually the younger sister of Richard II.'s queen whom young Hal knew pretty well, you get bonus points. Anyone ignoring the casting discontinuity from Aumerle in Richard II to York in Henry V and writes fanfic using Hollow Crown!Aumerle/York's backstory for his interactions with Hal in the "oh not today!" scene does as well. If anyone writes The Life and Loves of Doll Tearsheet and lets it end with her alive, well, and unimpressed by Henry V.'s martial glory I'll sacrifice my non existing firstborn.


And now for my favourite scene from Henry V., which, though a bit shortened, made it into the screen version, with comments, because it is so good it bears being read again and again. It's of course Anonymous! Henry's pre battle conversation with the two soldiers Bates and Williams.

( But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make )