Richard Smith-Jones spends all the government grant money on an avant-garde advertising campaign to re-brand the New Burbage Festival's image. Geoffrey Tennant has to deal with an egotistical star while directing Macbeth. Darren Nichols stages a radical re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet.

Geoffrey Tennant returns to the New Burbage Festival, the scene of his career-ending nervous breakdown, after the death of his friend Oliver Welles, the festival's artistic director. Geoffrey reluctantly agrees to fill in as interim artistic director as the festival stages Hamlet, starring Ellen Fanshaw, his ex-lover, and Jack Crew, a Hollywood action star with no stage experience.

When Oliver continues to appear, Geoffrey is not sure if he is being haunted or suffering another nervous breakdown.