Seat of power: Rosy Rowley’s Jack Falstaff, the fool mid-stool expunging on the throne. Picture: John Saunders
AMERICAN playwright Scott Bradley plays his Trump card by association in the York International Shakespeare Festival world premiere of A Kingdom Jack’d.
In situ for a month of rehearsals with fellow American Tempest Wisdom’s York company 1st Zanni Theatre, award-winning Iowa playwright, actor, director, producer and university lecturer Bradley asks the question: What if disgraced knight Jack Falstaff had landed on the throne in 1399, instead of serious warrior king Henry IV?
Enter birthday girl Rosy Rowley’s Falstaff – now King John II, no less – with a bibulous burp. Stupid, lecherous, selfish and still as funny as Queen Elizabeth I once found her favourite Shakespeare rogue, Bradley’s rumbustious lush must somehow fund the army, balance the budget and make foreign policy, betwixt naps, plentiful imbibing at the Boar’s Head inn, Eastcheap, and multiple meals at any excuse.
At full throttle: Oliver James Parkins’ Henry “Hal” Holingbroke in a fight to the death with Katie Leckey’s Harry “Hotspur” Percy in A Kingdom Jack’d. Picture: John Saunders
In Bradley’s satirical spin on Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I, Falstaff’s government is drunk, his enemies are plotting, the Welsh are rising, even his allies are scheming, and girlfriend Doll Tearsheet (the outstanding Julia Bisby), the smart London harlot, wants in on the action.
Whipped up in two brisk 45-minute halves, A Kingdom Jack’d pumps up the satirical volume with clowning physicality under Wisdom’s direction, while sounding the alarum bells for the consequences of buffoonery in positions of power.
As Wisdom puts it: “Scott has made Falstaff not only unpredictable, but dangerous. He now has institutional power on top of his pre-existing social power, and the thrill of watching the effects of that power unfold is hilarious and sickening in equal measure.”
Ro Trimble’s Lady “Kate” Percy in discussion with Katie Leckey’s Harry “Hotspur” Percy. Picture: John Saunders
In performance, the impact is more scabrously humorous than sickening (unless you are squeamish about the surfeit of swordplay in the Grand Guignol finale as the bodies pile up like uncollected bin bags in Birmingham in Pearl Mollison’s no-holds-barred fight choreography).
Rowley’s Falstaff is lairy, licentious, lewd, flippant as a pancake, and Bradley, Wisdom and Rowley alike revel in the symbolism of Falstaff flagrantly conducting ablutions in full view of all and sundry. By Rowley’s side, Bisby’s nimble Doll is droll and astute with a waspish crack of the quip in her putdowns.
Julia Bisby’s Doll Tearsheet stands over Rosy Rowley’s prone Jack Falstaff. Writer Scott Bradley, second from left, seated, front row, looks on. Picture: John Saunders
In a cast of 12, Wisdom draws both high energy and rhythmic versifying from their cast of 12, wherein Oliver James Parkins evokes Charlie Chaplin’s face, floppy hair and impishly disruptive comedy in Henry “Hal” Holingbroke; Jodie Foster is a riot as Lady Quickly and especially the intemperate Owen Glendower; Jimmy Johnson and Katie Leckey maximise the clowning in their head-banging double act and Ro Trimble’s impresses equally in the high camp of Edmund Mortimer and the scheming allure of Lady “Kate” Percy.
In a running joke by Bradley, Lou Dunn’s wallflower John Bolingbroke keeps being forgotten or ignored by everyone on stage, but not by the audience. Elsewhere, not everything is easy to follow in the plot, especially in Act Two, but maybe that is a nod to Shakespeare too by the ever canny, mischievous Bradley.
Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk.