Billy Bishop goes to war

In 2010, the celebrated story of the World War One flying ace -- credited with seventy-two victories and billed as the top pilot in the British Empire -- was revised to frame the original play as a retrospective. Billy Bishop now appears in his later years, reflecting on his wartime exploits and on the business of war and hero making. Bishop's reminiscence is not so much about death and the horror of war as it is about being young and intensely alive. "The prime of life / The best of men," Bishop sings. "It will never be / Like this again."