What happens when the heir to the throne spends his time among the rogues and reprobates of London’s underworld? When he joins them in their illicit pranks and escapades? When he seems to make a particular friend of the most dissolute scoundrel of them all? What will this wayward Prince do at a time of national crisis when rebels threaten his father’s throne? And how will he respond when finally his aging father sickens and dies and his disreputable companions follow him to the Court of England expecting to take their place among the highest in the land?

The Prince and the Knave takes extracts from Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays to tell the story of the tortuous relationship between Prince Hal, the future Henry V, and the down-at-heel knight Sir John Falstaff.

In his inimitable style, Shakespeare mingles comedy, drama and pathos in the tale of the young prince coming of age and at last finding his destiny, while the boastful, blustering Falstaff follows haplessly in his wake.