ABSTRACT
He really should have seen it coming. It is the play-within-the-play scene in Henry IV, Part 1, in Nicholas Hytner’s 2005 National Theatre production, and, as long as Falstaff is in command, it seems to be going rather well. Perched precariously on a worn armchair, sporting a crimson cushion for a crown, brandishing a wooden dagger in one long hand as the other flutters delicately across his chest, Falstaff’s, or Michael Gambon’s, “utter joy at role-playing the king” (Merlin 2005: 105) is delightfully visible, incorporating camp theatrical lisping, sly mimicry of David Bradley’s Bolingbroke, and an Olivieresque Richard III. The mood shifts a little almost as soon as Matthew MacFadyen’s Hal takes his place, but this Falstaff, to start with, either does not notice or affects not to. As Hal, hardly bothering to conceal his disdain, reels through the catalogue of his abuses, Falstaff remains centre stage, back to the audience, his false belly, silken slippers and red pantaloon’s trousers affording him a clownish pathos, swallowing each insult with a stoicism born of desperate neediness. Still he has his answer ready; his voice low, he implores Hal not to “banish plump Jack, and banish all the world”. A long silence, then Hal leans ever so slightly forward, never closer to him than at this moment, and, matter-of-factly, issues the coup de grâce:
I do, I will.
