Magic, mayem and a book that can’t be burnt – a classic of literature!
An actor enters with a battered copy of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, and begins to read aloud from the opening chapter…  We’re in a city run by fools and mediocrities. Elites protect their power, thinkers squabble over trivia, everyone is consumed by greed and materialism. And sitting on a park bench in this city is the Devil himself. Why is he here?  The story that follows is wild, joyful and magnificent. The tale unfurls from ancient Galilee to Stalin’s Moscow, via a giant talking cat, a mad novelist, a ruthless officer of the secret police… At its centre is Margarita, who has to become a witch in order to save a lost manuscript – and us all.

In a splendid country house beside a beautiful lake, love triangles, intrigue and thwarted egos are running amok. The ageing starlet Irina Arkadina has arrived for a romantic getaway with her much younger lover, the novelist Trigorin. Arkadina’s son, the struggling playwright Konstantin, is besotted with a beautiful young ingenue from the next house over, Nina. When a flirtation blossoms between Nina and Trigorin, jealousy and ambition throw the whole party into various states of crisis.

Seven of the amateur theatre company’s cast are down with the dreaded lurgy. So the Middling Cove Players’ director and two of the remaining actors, and whoever else Shane can co-opt, pitch in to continue the long tradition of ‘the show must go on.’ Juggling nerves, props, and absurd miscasting, will they manage to pull it off? Or will everything go horribly, terribly and awfully wrong?