A review of Henry V as performed by Insane Root Theatre in Bristol, England, on 25 July 2025. Run ends on 2 August

This blog post has no connection to my employer, BBC News

Have “famine, sword, and fire” found enough employment? Has there ever been a more urgent time this century to try to understand what drives people to and through war than the summer of 2025 as conflicts burn in the Middle East and Europe, clouding minds in England? Who better to help than a theatrical company of seven women, come to act out the dark passions that traditionally take hold of men? 

In the city of Bristol, six actresses conjure up a medieval English army on the march against France. Six women bristle into murder on the move. That is the physical power of William Shakespeare’s Henry V as performed in the open air by the cast of Insane Root Theatre. 

At work too is finer magic: a king rallies his troops, his “happy few”, his “band of brothers”, for battle in one of the greatest speeches of its kind; a king contemplates the weight of his office where “thou art less happy being fear’d than they in fearing”; and the fact that the king is played by a woman (Charlotte East) never matters, such is her domination of the fray and rule over  the stage. She cuts a figure as slight as a sparrow’s but conveys command through a delivery that relishes every word. 

The play rightly centres on the King of England but five other actresses rotate through their multiple roles magnificently, whether conjuring up the court of the enemy – Siobhan Bevan is particularly good as a relaxed King of France – or the harsh lives of Henry’s soldiers (Esmée Cook makes a memorable Pistol). 

It is a very funny play in places, as when Princess Katherine of France (Cook) attempts to learn English with Alice, an older noblewoman (Fowzia Madar). 

As the Chorus, Alice Barclay, the seventh actress, deftly sets the scenes for the audience, at one point nicely including the Bristol seagulls as they screech above stage on forays to France of their own.

There is an eighth player in this unique production, one as expressive as any of the rest, but as still and silent as the grave. It is an actual medieval bell tower which soars above beds of huge roses in full bloom, leaning out towards the great city at dusk in all its elegance. 

What it does not show to the world is the hideous scar that runs down its back: the church behind it is a ruin, blasted by German bombing in World War Two. And it is within the roofless walls of Temple Church – ruins even older than the Battle of Agincourt which the play depicts – that the players of Insane Root perform. The company, which tells “stories you know in places you don’t”, have chosen this maimed building deliberately, for this production alone.

Next month, when the players sheath their stage daggers and pack up their tennis balls – a recurring metaphor in this production for lives struck down – the Temple Church tower will doubtless lean on, bereft and lonely as any victim of war.

Temple Church is a short walk from Temple Meads railway station. B24/7 events guide is available online too