SOURCE: Carnegy, Patrick. Review of Henry IV, Part 1. Spectator 284, no. 8960 (29 April 2000): 43-4.

In the following review of Michael Attenborough's 2000 production of Henry IV, Part 1 at The Swan Theatre in Stratford, Carnegy comments on the shift from a modern-dress Richard II to this more traditional staging and highlights the roles of Hotspur, Bolingbroke, Prince Hal, and Falstaff.

Getting the RSC's history-plays marathon off to such a compelling start with a modernist Richard II was never going to make life easy for the seven productions that are to follow. The overall strategy, as Adrian Noble half-jokingly declares, is ‘post-modernist’, meaning that although there'll be continuities in casting the styles of staging will differ.

Thus many of those who played at The Other Place in Steven Pimlott's modern-dress Richard II now find themselves in vaguely antique costume at The Swan in a more traditional production of Henry IV Part I by...