In Liverpool in 1947, a theatre company is planning to produce a series of plays. Sixteen year old Stella, who lives with her aunt and uncle, and who has regular and mysterious phone-calls to her mother, joins the crew as an unpaid student. As the director assembles his cast and rehearses them through a series of plays, various sexual and emotional intrigues occurring backstage weave themselves into a finale of both triumph and tragedy. Based on the novel by Beryl Bainbridge.
