It is impossible to watch Max Webster’s modern-dress staging of Henry V without seeing flashes of Russia’s war on Ukraine in its machine-gun fire, bomb blasts and other pointed scenes of violence. Kit Harington’s King Harry is not a tyrant in Putin’s strongman mould but a seemingly reasonable leader, though we begin with a brief flashback to his Prince Hal days: he snorts coke and vomits before that dissolute memory melts away.
The reformed king appears like a chief executive and his court an accountancy firm – all steel grey suits and shirts – so that his proposition to invade France seems closer to a corporate takeover. It is a stark moment when the army fatigues and automatic rifles emerge on stage and the reality of war commences.
