Shakespeare’s history plays tend to get a bit of a rough deal. In class rooms Hamlet and Macbeth usually take centre stage, and most theatres depend on the famous comedies or Romeo and Juliet to get bums on seats. When telling people that I opted for Henry V as this year’s CAST I have been met with a fair few quizzical and “erm…why?” looks. The thing is, I happen to think that the history plays are some of the most exciting to be found in a copy of the Complete Works. They are crammed full of great speeches, thrilling battles, heroism, comedy, romance, a fantastic array of characters, and essentially offer a little something for everybody.

The opening speech of Henry V also suggested that it would be a great play to take on tour. The chorus acknowledges the difficulties of theatrical representation and actually makes CAST’s constrictions advantageous: they lie true to the text of the play and to the conditions of the Elizabethan theatre Shakespeare was writing for. We are not apologizing for women playing men, men playing many men, and our failure to offer you real cannons, palaces or plains full of army tents. This is theatre, and so a realm of transformation. Characters will multiply and locations will melt and shift to tell the story of “this star of England”, but we must also ask you to “eke out our performance with your mind”.

I have decided to place the play in a modern setting and this is to try and draw attention to the accessibility and universal relevance of Shakespeare’s work, but not to draw any direct parallels to specific examples of modern conflicts. The war in Henry V is between England and France in the fifteenth century, and that is how it shall remain.

The play is, in some respects, about ‘growing up’, (Henry is a man reborn from wild youth to ideal king) and rising to the challenges of adulthood. This is an issue which we all face, and one which I felt could be highlighted by the modern setting and it also makes it pertinent that these roles are being adopted by students.

Like Henry’s magnificent journey, CAST will be an adventure for this “band of brothers” (and sisters!). I would like to take this opportunity to thank absolutely everybody who has helped to make this happen. It takes an astonishing amount of planning, e-mails, phonecalls, meetings, spreadsheets, money, blood, sweat and tears to get a play on the road and I am so grateful for the chance to put into action the idea which slipped into my head and lodged itself there one day last December. Thank you also to all those who we will meet along the road and let us “on your imaginary forces work”.