The story I want to tell is the story of a band of brothers, of groups and groupings as they appear in rehearsal photographs of The Wars of the Roses. My story could begin with the two times I saw the ESC’s Henries-1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V, directed by Michael Bogdanov with the assistance of Michael Pennington-first in Toronto and again in London.1 What I remember was being immediately caught by the opening when, in working lights, most of the cast, wearing rehearsal clothes, stepped forward, led by the actor who would play Poins (Hal’s Horatio), to sing:

Come all you good people, who would hear a song Of men brave and men bold and men weak and men strong, Of a king who was mighty but wild as a boy And list to the ballad of Harry le Roy.