Powerful rebels are mustering their forces to topple the aging King Henry IV from his throne. Their success seems assured because the dying king cannot depend upon his son and heir Prince Hal. Instead, King Henry relies on the aid of the latest war hero Sir John Falstaff...and the kingdom is soon in for a big surprise.

Powerful rebels are mustering their forces to topple the aging King Henry IV from his throne. Their success seems assured because the dying king cannot depend upon his son and heir Prince Hal. Instead, King Henry relies on the aid of the latest war hero Sir John Falstaff ... and the kingdom is soon in for a big surprise.

"More troubled and troubling than King Henry IV Part 1, the play continues the story of King Henry's decline and Hal's reform. Though Part 2 echoes the structure of the earlier play, it is a darker and more unsettling world, in which even Falstaff's revelry is more tired and cynical, and the once-merry Hal sloughs off his tavern companions to become King Henry V. James C. Bulman's authoritative edition provides a wealth of incisive commentary on this...

While King Henry IV rightly laments that his heir, the young Prince Hal, has not distinguished himself in battle, Hal is up to no good at the Boar's Head Tavern with his rotund cohort, Falstaff. With a rebellion rising against the throne at home, Hal lives it up in the ale houses of London, associating with petty schemers and masterminding practical jokes instead of military strategies. When his father sends a messenger to fetch his delinquent son,...

The Hollow crown: New adaptations of Shakespeare's tetralogy of history plays comprising the 'Henriad' for the BBC's 2012 Cultural Olympiad: King Richard; II King Henry IV, Part 1; King Henry IV, Part 2 and King Henry V. The plays chronicle a continuous period in British history from the end of the 14th century to the aftermath of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Together, the plays comprise a story with recurring themes of power struggles, redemption,...