#1 – Sleep of Death
Near the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, aspiring actor Nick Revill arrives in London and joins the Chamberlain’s Men. After losing his lodgings, he is invited into a wealthy Thames-side household by a grieving young man whose father has died and whose mother has rapidly married…
#2 – Death of Kings
London, 1601. As uncertainty over Elizabeth I’s succession fuels rumour and faction, supporters of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, commission the Chamberlain’s Men to perform Richard II, Shakespeare’s drama of a king deposed. The government sees the production as a possible political signal rather than ordinary…
#3 – The Pale Companion
Wiltshire, midsummer 1601. Nick Revill and the Chamberlain’s Men travel across the downs to perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream for a noble wedding. The country-house celebration is strained by an arranged marriage, old family hostility and the presence of Stonehenge on the surrounding landscape. A suspected…
#4 – Alms for Oblivion
London, 1602. Nick Revill helps his boyhood friend Peter Agate obtain a place with the Chamberlain’s Men as the company prepares a private performance of Troilus and Cressida for the lawyers of Middle Temple. Peter is soon stabbed to death in Nick’s lodgings, and the evidence…
#5 – Mask of Night
London and Oxford, 1603. Plague has closed the public theatres, so the Chamberlain’s Men accept a private commission to perform Romeo and Juliet at an Oxford inn. Their patron, physician Hugh Fern, may be trying to reconcile two hostile families through a marriage, or merely to…
#6 – An Honourable Murderer
London, summer 1604. Spanish and Habsburg diplomats arrive to negotiate peace with James VI and I after nearly two decades of war. The acting company is drawn into the ceremonies, while opponents of reconciliation look towards Walter Raleigh and other displaced Elizabethan courtiers for resistance. Nick…