SOURCE: Neill, Heather. Review of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2. Times Educational Supplement, no. 4420 (16 March 2001): 24.

In the following review of Michael Attenborough's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 with the Royal Shakespeare Company at London's Barbican Theatre, Neill lauds the balanced, believable performances rendered by actors in the roles of Falstaff, Hal, and Henry IV.

How nastily manipulative should Falstaff be and how much a forgivable—even lovable—old reprobate? Is Hal cynically calculating or a king-in-waiting whose loyalties are divided between his usurping father, King Henry IV, and his surrogate father, the dissolute Falstaff?

Michael Attenborough's production of Parts 1 and 2 finds the balance superbly, allowing massy Desmond Barrit to be good company as the fat knight but not glossing over his immorality, his cheating, his carelessness about the suffering and death of soldiers and recruits.

Hal, meanwhile, is genuinely fond of Falstaff, to whom he needs to escape before the...