Before Nell and After Agincourt

Following a successful showcase at Theatre at The Tabard in 2024, The Crooked Billets brings Peter Mottley’s double bill of forgotten gems to Upstairs at The Gatehouse for a special two week run. Written in the 1980s, these thrilling one-handers use Shakespeare’s Henry V as a framework to explore themes of coming-of-age, class, PTSD, and the real human cost of war.

Before Nell is told through the eyes of a boy actor preparing to take the stage as Nell Quickly AKA Madame Pistol in the first ever production of Henry V. It presents a heart-breaking, darkly comic and meticulously researched insight into the hardships and social dynamics of the time.

After Agincourt is a visceral and brutal recounting of the English invasion of France in 1415. Set in The Boar’s Head Tavern seven years later, a drunk and bitter Pistol details the campaign of bloody battles in vivid modern vernacular at the same time tearing down the heroic picture of King Henry V we’re so familiar with.