If a small man with a mustache could choose any decade from which to film all 37 of Shaky Bill's stage plays, the decade from which the BBC chose the RSC to make this and other 36 is the best decade between "this muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention" and "Dune Buggy Capers 9: The Hunt for Booberella." "The History of Henry IV, Part 1" is this: a staged drama with identifiably staged scenes . . . identifiably staged scenes being an ailment that every partisan of Shakespeare's suffered before the invention of film. Ask yourself: Are you able to make believe? Can you suspend your disbelief? Can you convict yourself of things that you know to be not real? If you: "Yes, of course I can, who would mark the better value of Shakespeare as that which would* make a presentation a mere swifter sale of the goods? Whatever it may take to spare me from a long and labored reading!" . . and if you care to ask "Who's who in what?" you will be Bushy, Bagot and/or Green to find yourself unamused'd watching this mise en scène.
* "Which would" - a common root used by IMDb.com users to render readers fristed, fitch and foul.
* "Which would" - a common root used by IMDb.com users to render readers fristed, fitch and foul.