Henry V, Shakespeare's Globe, review How do you turn a diverse mass of men, each with his own cares and doubts, into one indomitable fighting force, a band of brothers? The answer, inscribed at the heart of Shakespeare's most stirring history play, lies in the power of words. On the eve of battle at Agincourt, 1415, faced with a numerically superior enemy, Henry V gives one of the most morale-boosting pep-talks ever uttered by a monarch, courtesy of a little artistic licence. The result, as the Bard reminds us, tweaking the contrasting statistics of the French and English casualties for maximum impact, is one of the greatest victories in our history. Of course, "technological" advantage - the use of longbows - played its part, and the elated, exhausted King thanks God, too, for his miraculous good fortune. But the reason why, in a secular age, this play still packs a hefty punch is the psychologically astute suggestion that it was the rhetoric what won it. The truth of this is revealed in real-time. When Jamie Parker's Hal - now grown to the stature of a full-bodied, and often bloody-faced, warrior - makes a gentle appeal, with hands outstretched, asking his audience to picture how they will be remembered - "From this day to the ending of the world" - you see how a call to arms can work like a charm, using the drumbeat of verse to draw us in. Understanding the Globe's dynamic, Dominic Dromgoole's revival, opening the summer season, simply harnesses our imaginations. The costumes are plausible period affairs. There's some gilded scaffolding. Backcloths bear stylish coats of arms. Conventional, perhaps, but it works a treat, and the pacing is superb, helped by the inspired idea of giving the role of the Chorus to the birdlike Irish actress Brid Brennan - who flits about in the guise of a serving wench, like the slighted spirit of "Her-story." The comedy isn't neglected. Parker may have to play it serious and sober much of the time, and is visibly shattered by what he goes through, but he musters a delightfully affreux French accent during the wooing scene with Olivia Ross's Princess Katherine - who herself contorts the English tongue in ludicrous ways before a prolonged kiss ensures amity breaks out between the two warring sides. Elsewhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Ely (Paul Rider and Brendan O'Hea) entertainingly hatch plots while taking it in turns on the privy; and the Welshman Captain Fluellen (O'Hea again) is a garrulous hoot, at the vanguard of the play's amused sense of Britain's emergent, bickering nationhood. And Sam Cox makes for a splendidly unhinged Pistol, all wayward delivery and shifty body-language. In the end, though, the evening acts as a chastening reminder of what a country needs when it's up against it. Those rash souls at the Ministry of Defence, pruning the army to within an inch of its fighting life, would do well to take note. Until August 26.