The play would have been an apt choice, as it is about a British military victory against tremendous odds. It is this possibility that inspired Damien Ryan, who is directing Henry V as his first mainstage production for Bell Shakespeare, to employ it as a framing device. The production is premiering in Canberra.

Henry V tells the story of the young king who matured and took the throne in the two Henry IV plays, presented last year by Bell Shakespeare in a condensed single evening as Henry 4.

In this play, Henry V must deal with treachery in England as he plans the invasion of France in order to claim his right to a kingdom and to marry the daughter of the French king. The climax comes with the Battle of Agincourt in which the low-spirited English forces are outnumbered five to one on St Crispin's Day (October 25) - 60,000 to 10,000. Henry delivers a rousing speech - "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" - that lifts the men's morale and delivers victory.

Ryan directed Henry V in drama school about a decade ago but this is his first professional production of the play, which Bell Shakespeare last presented in 1999. One of the many things that intrigues him about the work is the role of the Chorus - a single character who works as a "storyteller''. The character introduces the play and asks those in the audience to use their imaginations to compensate for action and spectacle that can't be portrayed on stage.

And it's a concept that works for Ryan's vision of the play, set in a bunker on the crucial Henry V date of St Crispin's Day with a teacher as the Chorus introducing the boys' production. The 10 actors perform 44 speaking roles in this slightly trimmed version of the text.

Although Henry V is one of Shakespeare's "history plays", as Ryan says, "It's not really a history play: he ignores so much of history and plays fast and loose when it suits him."

Shakespeare is, as always, using the events and characters of history to his own dramatic ends, exploring the myth of the warrior king and the power of speech and rhetoric. More than once, Ryan says, "Henry backs himself into a corner then talks his way out of it".

He says it has parallels with a play like Julius Caesar - which also deals loosely with history - in its use of rhetoric to persuade at crucial moments (such as Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech). And, indeed, with history itself.

"Leaders we all recognise like Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Paul Keating - these were great leaders respected for their powers of oration."

But it isn't enough, he says: at the end of Henry V we find out just how short-lived the victory lasted, how empty the rhetoric turned out to be. In Julius Caesar, the mob turned out to be foolish and easily swayed; while politics now seems to be about catchphrases and repetition rather than any kind of inspiration, however transient.

Ryan says Henry V is very different to the Henry IV plays.

Michael Sheasby - who graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2010 - is playing Henry V. He's 25 and not unduly young for the role.

"They think he was 26 when he was crowned as king so he was 27, 28, 29 when all this was going on," he says.

"I've got millions of questions,'' he says, when asked his view of the character. ''What exactly is the king after? Is his relationship with God genuine? How much of an actor is the king? When is the king performing and when is he trying to manipulate people into saying what he wants them to say?"

"Henry is - I don't want to use the word 'nut' - religiously obsessed: his relationship with God is extremely obsessive. The wonderful thing about the play is the way Shakespeare deals with it."

Sheasby says his problem with all the productions of Henry V he has seen is, "they either see Henry as a hero fighting for good or as as this evil warmonger. What I think about when I look at the text is the balance Shakespeare gives us, the extremes he gives us: Henry is a very human character."

He ranges from deep humanity to extreme darkness and that mix of qualities is something Sheasby is eager to portray, rather than opting for a one-dimensional character.

"I can't judge him at all: I can't go, 'He's a good guy' or 'a bad guy' - that's absolute rubbish."

Ryan praises Sheasby for his "beautiful voice and terrific intelligence with language. He's very fearless and has wonderful emotional depth''.

The actor, says Ryan, has the ability to convey the "alpha male'' qualities of Henry as well as his youth and sensitivity.

As Sheasby says, directors have emphasised different aspects of the main character in their productions - a fact illustrated by two major film adaptations of the play, made more than 40 years apart. Laurence Olivier made his cinematic directorial debut with Henry V when he was in his late 30s, as well as playing the title role. Olivier would go on to direct and star in film adaptations of Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1956).

The Olivier Henry V was released in 1944 and was supported by the British government as a World War II propaganda piece, to rally the British people and their allies. Olivier and his collaborators abridged the text, in the process removing aspects that cast Henry in a less heroic light, to help boost moral in wartime (even if France was no longer the enemy). The film opens as a production of the play in 1600 at the Globe Theatre, gradually drawing the audience in and becoming more cinematic as it progresses before, finally, returning to the theatre at the end.

It was well received by critics and proved popular internationally. It was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture and Olivier was awarded a special Academy Award, "for his outstanding achievement as actor, producer and director in bringing Henry V to the screen".

Kenneth Branagh's 1989 film adaptation of the play that he starred in and directed when he was in his late 20s - his own cinematic directorial debut - was, coincidentally or not, released shortly after Olivier's death. The Chorus introduces the action from a sound stage, in an updated nod to Olivier's framing device.

The film was nominated for three Oscars - two for him as director and actor - and won for its costume design. Olivier's film was representative of its time, a lavish technicolour spectacle with a heroic Henry to inspire the masses off screen as well as off. Branagh's darker, grittier vision, unstinting on the violence and mud, was more in keeping with the more cynical era in which it was made, and Branagh's Henry is not as clearly heroic as Olivier's: the ruthless side of the character Shakespeare wrote is more apparent.

Ryan admires both films. He points out, "Olivier cut out the stuff that makes it ambiguous" but understands why that was so. But the idea of war has changed since 1945.

"Now, we don't have that kind of right and wrong any more,'' he says.

He wants his production of Henry V to reflect that ambivalence.

Henry V is on at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre from June 13 (preview) to June 28. Bookings: 6275 2700 or canberratheatrecentre.com.au