People arguing, that isn't theatre. People making points. And what's more, you and I don't belong in drawing rooms. Drawing rooms can't contain us. We need courts and palaces and cathedrals. There's scale for us there. We can move our elbows. Little rooms give us no space.

Henry Irving believes that theatre is the only thing that matters. Ellen Terry believes it's more important to be a decent human being. Ellen's daughter Edith Craig believes theatre can change society, but her son Edward Gordon Craig dreams only of a theatre free from actors and dialogue. Together, but in very different ways, they develop the paths which lead to the modern British theatre.

David Hare's magnificent play opened at Theatre Royal Bath, in June 2025.

David Hare has written nearly forty stage plays and thirty screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy's View, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn, Beat the Devil and Straight Line Crazy. For cinema, he has written The Hours and The Reader, among others. We Travelled, a collection of essays and poems, was published in 2021. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, five of the top hundred were his.