England, 1776: The leading man of English theatre, David Garrick, has recently retired. The throne is vacant. Who will have the star power to take his throne?

 

London is divided into two camps – two theatres with a royal patent each: Covent Garden and Drury Lane – actually, two and half counting the summer season at the Little Theatre, Haymarket but that didn't really count, did it?

 

Well, not so fast. It's manager had written the prelude for the first night of the new Theatre Royal, Liverpool, and it is here we find ourselves at the start of the autumn season.

 

Three young actors meet for rehearsal:

 

• Sarah Siddons, still licking her wounds from a failed London debut and reconciled to being an also-ran for the rest of her days, probably.

 

• Her brother, John Philip Kemble, college drop out and recently imprisoned for not having the wherewithal to pay his tailor's bill and let's face it, no real prospects for having it anytime soon. 

 

• Elizabeth Inchbald, weary from touring Scotland with a rather wearisome older husband, much of it on foot, broke after a jaunt to France and cursed by a stammer she cannot overcome.  

​

Hardly likely contenders to the throne, but could there be a reversal of fortune? Come with us backstage and meet these three acolytes of Thespis, and if we're lucky, history just might unfold before our very eyes! 

​