Billy Bishop heads for small screen

More than 30 years after first mounting their celebrated stage production of Billy Bishop Goes to War, Eric Peterson says he and musical accompanist John Gray have lost none of their ardour for the war hero's tale.

The latest incarnation of the hit production, which was first performed in 1978,is a small screen versionscheduled to broadcast the day before Remembrance Day.

Peterson says he and Gray have more enthusiasm for the play than ever, noting they relished the packed production schedule they took on during recent stage performances.

"John and I do eight performances a week when we're on stage and when we were younger we said, 'No, no, no, it's too much! I can only do six, I can't do two shows in a day!" saidPeterson, who wrote the play with Gray and plays multiple roles.

'It becomes less about a special man who was a war ace and a war hero, and more about every person, in a way, as they look back on their life.' Eric Peterson, actor

"And here we are, three times as old, going, 'Oh, yeah, we'll do the eight shows.' But with eight shows a week, you are on the edge of your physical (capacity), at least for me. It is a lot."

On Wednesday, Peterson and Gray star in an hour-long televised version of their award-winning production, shot over two weeks in a CBC studio stocked with props from their numerous live performances.

In this incarnation, the First World War ace from Owen Sound, Ont., is near the end of his life, recalling a storied battle career as he sits in his pyjamas in a relic-filled attic.

As in the 90-minutestage production, Peterson takes on a myriad of characters as Bishop recounts his airborne exploits, while Gray is both pianist and narrator.

The pair have performed the play at three distinct times in their lives first in their mid-30s, again in their early 50s and now in their early 60s. Both are now 64.

"Each time it's allowed us not to just remount it but to re-interpret it,"says Peterson, who also played the curmudgeonly Oscar Leroy in the defunct CTV comedy Corner Gas. "It's been a great little creative engine in itself."

The 1978 Billy Bishop featured a young man who's just returned from the war. That productiontoured Canada and earned aGovernor General's Award for drama.

Gray and Peterson revised the show in 1998, adding a new song and presenting events through the eyes of a 57-year-old veteran addressing young flyers about to fight in the Second World War.

In 2009, they brought it back to the stage for a celebrated summer run with Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company. At the time, both Gray and Peterson were 62, the same age the real Bishop was when he died.

"That kind of referencing in these different places made different things in the play come out of it, even with the same words," Peterson said.

"It becomes less about a special man who was a war ace and a war hero, and more about every person, in a way, as they look back on their life filled with the same kind of ambivalent feelings."

Their most recent production heads to Calgary and Montreal in the new year before returning to Soulpepper's repertory season.

Billy Bishop Goes to War airs Wednesday on CBC-TV.