According to popular belief, Shakespeare’s last play was The Tempest. Was it? Well, we don’t know. Scholars believe it is the last of the plays he wrote by himself, and there were two more he wrote with his successor at the Globe, John Fletcher. And, according to Kenneth Brannagh’s last Shakespeare-related movies, All is True, the last play actually was a history play, Henry VIII, also known as All is True.
Scholars aren’t sure how much of the play Shakespeare wrote and how much Fletcher wrote of the final play. Plus, honestly, I can never remember Fletcher’s name without looking him up, so I am not that sure how good his work was on his own, but here we are. Why did the BBC choose Henry VIII to finish season one of its Shakespeare productions? I don’t know, but it is an odd choice, and so, time to press on.
Notable cast members: None of the big roles for this one are actors I recognize off-hand. That said, we do have Jullian Glover, a guy who’s been in Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and most recently, he was Grand Maester Pycelle in Game of Thrones. Here, he’s the Duke of Buckingham. And, for a single scene as a Spanish ambassador keeping the dying Katherine of Aragon company, we have the very familiar John Rhys-Davies.
Trivia: This was the second of two productions the BBC filmed on location. However, unlike As You Like It, this time around the move brought praise from critics. Much of these location shots were done at old castles where many of the events Shakespeare dramatized actually happened. It gives the work a bit of ambiance that Shakespeare could have never accomplished for obvious reasons. Given how much of Shakespeare’s work was about English history, taking advantage of that fact was a smart move for the BBC, though as near as I can make out, they never tried it again.
The play: OK, I’ll say it right here to start: Henry VIII is a pretty weird play in many ways. It’s not one of my favorites, and there’s a reason I haven’t reread it since grad school. I chalk that up to Fletcher for no better reason than I can. There’s probably more of him than Shakespeare here, mostly because it looks like Shakespeare was helping his successor out with a few things before he left. That doesn’t mean Henry VIII is a bad play or anything. Heck, there are worse in Shakespeare’s cannon. What it does mean is this one is just weird.
Most history plays are named for the king ruling a the time, there’s usually a war, and we get the king doing kingly things. Or, we get someone who will be king doing kingly things, And though Henry VIII wasn’t shy about going to war, none of that happens here. Instead, Shakespeare opts to tell the story that pretty much everyone who dramatizes the life of Henry VIII does, namely his decision to leave the Catholic Church, divorce first wife Katherine of Aragon, and marry second wife Anne Boleyn (or “Bullen” as its spelled in the closing credits here). And, oddly enough, while King Henry does have a good role here, he’s arguably not the main character so much as the character everyone wants to be involved with.
As such, there’s a pattern to this play. We meet various high ranking government officials (Buckingham, Cardinal Wolsey, Queen Katherine if she counts as a high ranking government official), all of whom are being discarded by the king for one reason or another. Each fights that to the best of his or her ability, but once they lose, they go off and give a speech about what a special honor it was to be associated with Henry and they have no regrets, not really. Heck, Wolsey has a line about how he was more devoted to the king than he was to God. Something about this Henry makes people want to serve him, and this play was written after the Tudor dynasty ended, making that an even stranger sort of thing to write about.
In fact, the play ends with the Christening of young Elizabeth, future Virgin Queen, and there are a few speeches, even one from Henry himself, about how this was the crowning moment of his life and the baby girl is destined for great things. Even a cursory knowledge of Henry’s life will tell you the real Henry thought no such thing. He wanted a son, and it wasn’t that long after Elizabeth birth before he had Anne executed and married his third and favorite wife Jane Seymour, AKA the one who did give him a son and then died not long after giving birth. Like I said, this is an odd play, more about people who want to be with Henry than it is about Henry himself.
That said, the “meet cute” at a masked ball between Henry and Anne in this play is a nice touch.
Grade: Like I said, not one of my favorites, and there’s only so much you can do about people giving speeches about how they were just glad to serve the man who tossed them aside. C+
Next: Well, that was the BBC’s first season, ending with a history play. The second season opens with what is probably the strongest of Shakespeare’s history plays: Henry IV Part 1.
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