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Musical biopic adapted from the play about Canadian Air Marshal William Avery 'Billy' Bishop, portrayed here by Eric Peterson. Enthusiastic about aviation from a young age, Bishop joined the Royal Military College of Canada at 17 and later became a dsitinguished pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. Now an aging veteran, he reflects on his life and, particularly, his experiences in World War I during which he shot down over 70 enemy aircraft.

One of Canada's most celebrated and enduring plays comes to the screen in this offbeat musical drama. Billy Bishop was born in 1894 in Owen Sound, Toronto; he was a loner with a sense of adventure and fascination with airplanes, and at the age of seventeen he enrolled at the Royal Military College of Canada. Bishop was an undistinguished student, but as a member of Canada's Royal Flying Corps he became a hero, shooting down 72 enemy planes during World War I and receiving more decorations than any of his peers. In 1978, John Gray and Eric Peterson debuted BILLY BISHOP GOES TO WAR, a compact but ambitious theatre piece in which a pianist accompanied one actor who played Bishop as well as seventeen other characters. Director Barbara Willis-Sweete has filmed the play in a manner that honours its theatrical origins, as Peterson plays the elderly Bishop, imaging his life and times with mingled joy, sorrow and bitterness as he takes on the voices of the many people he's encountered in his life, while Gay at the piano interjects songs that help tell the story.