It’s 1971 and, in between filming seasons of Floggit and Leggit!, ageing actors Edward Lowe and John Le Breton sign up for a short run of Shakespeare tragedies at the Bolton Playhouse. But, once in Lancashire, they discover they have been invited to join the theatre’s repertory company for two reasons – because the company manager is keen to take advantage of the publicity surrounding their successful BBC comedy series and because Sir Nathaniel Thompson, the much-lauded star of the show and knight of the realm, has been sacked for drunkenness.

John fears an awkward scene, should Thompson – who he knew during the war – return to reclaim his job, but when the great actor’s body is found, bludgeoned to death in a nearby alleyway, the unlikely crime-solving duo find themselves investigating another fiendish mystery that takes them from the northwest of England to the Netherlands, and which, rather inconveniently, seems to have John’s ex-wife Sally at its heart.