Elizabeth and Essex, Shakespeare and Southampton - 'fair youths', player-playwrights and 'dark ladies' - all touched each others' lives and left amazing marks on ours. An evening with Shakespeare and his circle, dramatised in Sonnet, Song and Dance.

Eastgate Art Centre, Peebles
Date: 7.30 pm Satureday 28 Febraury 2009
Date: 7.30 pm Thursday 19 March 2009

Biggar Municipal Hall, 5 Kirkstyle
Date: 7.30 pm Thursday 27 August 2009

Cardrona Village Hall
Date: 7.30 pm Saturday 29 August 2009

Act 1

London in the late 1590s. Queen Elizabeth I is still on the throne, though growing old, and her unruly favourite, the Earl of Essex, is a populat hero with huge ambitions. The setting of hte play alternates between Drury House, the London home of Shakespeare's patron, the young Earl of Southampton, and teh private appartments of the Queen. Southampton's mother, assisted by Shakespeare, wants her son to marry Lord Burghley's grand-daughter, but he has other plans. Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady' is head over heels in love with Shakepeare and when the latter's secret marriage is revealed, she and Shakesperae reflect bitterly on their feelings for the young Earl and for each other. The Queen has Southampton and his pregnant wife imprisoned in the Fleet prision - in separate cells! - but is persuaded by his mother to let them out. The Countess does not want her grandchild to be born in gaol.

Act 2

It is 1601. Essex leads a senseless rebellion which has terrible effects on Queen Elizabeth as well as on Southampton, Shakespeare and Essex himself. The wild behaviour of her former favourite forces the Queen to let him be condemned to death. Shakespeare and his company get off lightly, but Southampton is saved from death only by his mother's desperate intercession with the Queen. The Queen herself is shattered by events. Her death brings to an end a brilliant era where a woman could defy the misogyny of powerful men. The arrival of King James from Scotland marks the beginning of a very different cultural climate.