• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer

21st Folio Podcast

A podcast about modern Shakespeare productions of stage and screen.

  • Listen
    • Productions
      • Coriolanus
      • Hamlet
      • Henry V
      • Julius Caesar
      • King Lear
      • Macbeth
      • Richard II
      • Richard III
      • Romeo and Juliet
      • Twelfth Night
    • Interviews
    • Sorting Shakespeare
    • Stage vs. Screen
  • Contributors
    • Dan Beaulieu
    • Noemi Berkowitz
    • Danny Bowes
    • Kevin Condardo
    • Laura Anne Harris
    • Alex Heeney
    • Connor Joel
    • David Larsen
    • Caitlin Merriman
    • Jeremy Mongeau
    • Lesley Peterson
    • Mary Angela Rowe
    • Craig Ruttan
  • Resources
  • About
  • Seventh Row
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
Home / Episodes / Productions / Henry V / Ep. 27: Netflix’s The King starring Timothée Chalamet

Alex Heeney / December 9, 2019

Ep. 27: Netflix’s The King starring Timothée Chalamet

In this episode, we dive deep into Netflix’s The King, a sort of adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 & II and Henry V. We get a bit frustrated and snarky. This is a crossover episode with our Seventh Row podcast on film.

Timothée Chalamet stars in Netflix’s The King, directed by David Michôd, a sort of adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V

In the latest attempt to adapt Shakespeare for modern audiences, Australian director David Michôd (The Rover) directs Timothée Chalamet in The King, a sort-of rewriting of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 & 2 and Henry V. The film is set in the original time period, but Shakespeare’s language has been gutted, while his structure is preserved, in favour of modern English with the occasional “ye olde” touch. The script, written by Joel Edgerton (who stars as Falstaff) and Michôd, turns Falstaff into one of the stars of Henry V (instead of showing his death…) who goes to Agincourt with Hal.

In this episode, we try to make sense of why The King was made, who it’s for, how it hews closely to some aspects of Shakespeare and veers wildly away from it, and why it made us so angry.

This episode features a discussion between our Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Editor-at-Large Mary Angela Rowe, and regular 21st Folio guest Caitlin Merriman. The episode was edited by Edward von Aderkis.

Show notes and Recommended Reading

  • Read Orla Smith’s in-depth analysis of Timothée Chalamet’s career and performances to date.
  • Read Alex Heeney’s in-depth analysis of Tom Hiddleston’s career and his excellent performance as Hal and Henry V.
  • Listen to our 21st Folio episode about two excellent Henry V films, starring Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hiddleston respectively, here.
  • Listen to our 21st Folio episode on Romeo & Juliet, for a look at how a radical adaptation (like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet) can actually be closer to the spirit of Shakespeare than one that doggedly sticks to the text (like Zefferelli’s)
  • If you’d like to see Timothée Chalamet be actually good, we highly recommend Call Me by Your Name, a film so good we wrote a whole book about it at Seventh Row.
  • This episode mentions Justin Kurzel’s screen adaptation of Macbeth. Listen to our episode on the film.

Don’t miss another episode! 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

You can also subscribe on SoundCloud, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Alex Heeney, Caitlin Merriman, Episodes, Henry V, Mary Angela Rowe, Productions, Stage vs. Screen

Keep up with Shakespeare

Join our weekly newsletter to be the first to know about new episodes, Shakespeare news, and special promotions.

Reader Interactions

Footer

About Us

21st Folio is a podcast from Seventh Row about modern Shakespeare productions of stage and screen.

Find out more

Follow Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 · Digital Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • SoundCloud
  • Email