This series is based around a troop of actors in Elizabethan London called Westfield’s Men. They begin life as a troop based at a pub, which gives the first book its name ‘The Queen’s Head’. The books give an insight into what the life of actors in Elizabethan London could have been like, both the sharers who had a financial stake in the company and the hired men who hoped that they would continue to have a job.

The main character is the book-holder (a bit like a modern stage manager) called Nicholas Bracewell. Other characters include lead actor Lawrence Firethorn, playwright Edmund Hoode, clown Barnaby Gill, and other members of the company including Owen Elias, George Dart and Nicholas’s love interest, Anne Hendrik. The characters are gradually developed over the course of the books, and we find out more about each of them.

You would think that being constantly in London would get boring, but there are some books that take them on tours of England, and even abroad. I don’t think that these are as good in some ways, but they offer relief from London, for example, ‘The Fair Maid of Bohemia’.

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