Cold War, 1959. Actress Coral Browne was part of a British production of Hamlet touring Soviet Russia. In Moscow the play was seen by the spy Guy Burgess, who had defected to the USSR. Burgess invited Browne to his squalid apartment on the outskirts of the capital.
The story of what happened next was told by Browne to Bennett, who turned this uniquely poignant tale into one of his most particular, popular and insightful pieces of theatre.