Christopher Uptake

‘Merry England’, during the reign of Good Queen Bess, was a police state.

It was a crime to miss attendance at the state church on Sunday, and a crime to hear a Catholic mass. It was a crime to be ‘a free thinker’.

Christopher Uptake, a young playwright, is an atheist. Living and writing in the crowded city, he thinks it has escaped notice that he never attends church – until the red-haired man appears at his door and gives him a choice: spy on your friends or be tortured and executed.

From then on, Chris plays a desperate game, trying to spare his friends yet save his own life...