The Henry VI plays are Shakespeare’s earliest, most theatrically exciting plays and in their day, they were among his most popular works
Modern productions have become landmark works that have defined institutions such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the English Shakespeare Company. This is the first major study of the
Henry VI plays in performance, focusing on the cultural context of modern British productions on stage and screen. It explores Shakespeare’s troubling depiction of England in crisis
and relates those themes to contemporaneous questions of national identity.
