Nicholas Hytner challenges past performance convention with his approach to what are often referred to as "the low life characters" – Mistress Quickly, Nym, Bardolph, Pistol and the Boy. Sometimes treated as comic relief, as the
Rehearsal Diary makes clear, in this production they are given an opportunity to come across as characters rather than caricatures, and allowed a convincing depth to their own lives, and deaths.
They also represent a tangible link with the King’s wayward youth, as actor Cecilia Noble tells us, speaking in her character as
the publican, Mistress Quickly . She knew Henry when he was wild Prince Hal. But it is a past Henry must and does repudiate as he takes on the mantle of kingship. A past which we see in flashback in the
home video featuring Falstaff, who dies offstage in the course of the play unmourned by Henry. But it is another brutal death, that of Bardolph, which marks the King’s decisive break with his dissolute youth.
Henry’s former drinking companions go to war for king and country, albeit with an additional motive of their own. They aim to seize the chance of making themselves rich with a little looting and plundering, as actor David Kennedy tells us, speaking in character as
Bardolph .
When Bardolph is caught stealing from a church in France, he trusts his old mate Hal to pardon him. But he has reckoned without the change in the King. In a shocking scene we learn just how different Henry has become, when he turns his pistol on Bardolph at point blank range, and executes him.
