Kit Harington attends the press night performance of “Henry V” at the Donmar Warehouse
(Picture: Dave Benett)Henry V star Kit Harington said Shakespeare’s warrior king was the part he always wanted to play.
He takes the title role, played previously by names including Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, in a modern adaptation at the Donmar Warehouse.
He said: “If you’d asked me what Shakespeare part do you want to play I’d have said Henry V.
“That was where the conversation started a couple of years ago about coming here and doing something and we discussed a few things and one of them was Henry and here we are a couple of years later after pandemics and everything.”
The actor, who played Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, said the scenes from Ukraine had “really landed” with the cast who take to the stage in uniform.
He said: “It gave it a real poignancy for us performing it in modern warfare gear and it being about one country invading another.”
Director Max Webster said: “There has been war in the world almost every day since the play was written 400 years ago and obviously we’ve now got war closer to our home than we’ve had in a long time.
“You can never quite tell the way things are going to be relevant but sadly it’s a play about leadership and aggression and nationalism and patriotism and courage and death and violence and those things are for good or ill always present and important to be thinking about.”
