Shakespeare's life and legacy is threatened when the Gunpowder Plot unearths a secret he has worked all his life to bury: his family are Catholics, traitors to the crown. When his daughter is implicated in the fallout, Shakespeare unleashes his most epic work to date: Macbeth, which appeals to the new monarch, King James I. As Shakespeare teeters towards death, he reflects on his successes and failures, questioning family, forgiveness and mortality as his work is at risk of being lost forever.
