Without Terry, it would be a lot less good. Indeed, Terry is effortlessly funnier than anybody else: Amankwah and Schlesinger never really click. Instead, you’re never far from a laugh in a show that could borderline be described as ‘a romp’. The overall effect is to unify the tone of a play that usually comes across as divided between the serious political bits, and the comedy bits where the young Prince Harry (Sarah Amankwah) bums around with his disreputable mentor Sir John Falstaff (Helen Schlesinger). The tender scenes with Hotspur’s young wife Lady Percy are hysterically rewired into masterclasses in alpha male douchiness – Hotspur seems to be barely even listening to her as she waxes eloquent about her fears for him. Sure, Terry’s going against the text a bit. Her Hotspur is an angry, sardonic young man whose main motives appear to be bloodlust and boredom. Hotspur is usually interpreted as a noble idealist whose tragedy is that he’s more decent than the king he clashes with, but Terry pretty much goes the other way. Michelle Terry leads the return of her Globe Ensemble from the front: the actor-artistic director’s all-guns-blazing take on rebel lord Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy is the clear highlight of her rep company’s second season.
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