Nicholas Hytner on Henry V

Nicholas Hytner talks about Henry V, his first production as Director of the National.

‘Hytner’s staging… strikes me as being as intelligent as it is daring, as deeply felt as it is fresh. You leave the theatre feeling you have watched a genuine National epic, which suggests Shakespeare’s England is still our own.’ (Daily Telegraph)

"O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon."

Nicholas Hytner on Henry V finished on: 20 June 2003