Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1

Bolingbroke, now Henry IV, holds an uneasy crown; his son Hal slums it in Eastcheap taverns with the fat knight Falstaff while the brilliant, hot-tempered Hotspur raises rebellion in the north.

Shakespeare braids court, tavern, and battlefield into a single story about what a king is actually made of. Falstaff — vast, witty, shameless, and somehow the most alive character in the language — is reason enough. That his scenes coexist with Hotspur’s and never feel like a different play is the miracle.

Henry IV, Part 1 on screen