After Aphra: The Story of Aphra Behn and the Widow Ranter

Still grieving just weeks after Aphra Behn’s unexpected death, some of the people who say they loved her most, end up in a pub together in the wake of yet another disaster. The play Aphra was writing in her final weeks, “The Widow Ranter” has been staged, and, shockingly, is a flop. But why? The fast-moving, witty, complex, spectacular and topical show, with its cross-dressing, hard-drinking heroine and star studded cast, ought to have been the final smash hit that theatreland had been expecting. What went wrong? Some people, at least, want to find out. But asking a few questions too many sometimes has disturbing results. If it’s not the storyline or the script that’s the problem, is it the audience that’s changing in the new world of William and Mary? In remembering Aphra, her friends begin to realise that each of them has lost a different person.