Prologue

Michael enters, confused and half-remembering events as they unfold. He reads from a book and recognises his life story, and yet doesn't. A female chorus is heard singing of how women gathered in the moonlight of ancient Greece to worship at Sappho's word.  

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Scene 1— Opening Night

Michael reads from his journal a glowing review of his early work. Michael is a poet, and by the sounds of things, a talented one. Flicking through his journal time moves on and Michael finds himself in a London theatre with two women, Katherine and Edith, watching a play of theirs being rehearsed. Katherine sings of how there is no place on earth as exciting to her as in a theatre, and Edith gives an account of the dress rehearsal of their first stage play, A Question of Memory. With great anticipation, the play begins. 

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Scene 2 — Before Michael 

Time flows backwards and Michael reads in the journal of Katherine and Edith's early lives. Katherine, a smart, determined and talented poet leaves her home town of Birmingham to travel but when her sister falls ill she returns to look after her nieces Amy and Edith. Edith and Katherine form a special bond over their shared love of poetry and when Katherine travels Europe the two remain in constant dialogue with each other through their letters. They coin endless nicknames for one another (Katherine's bird inspired and Edith's relate to all things cat) and their love for one another grows into something more. 

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Scene 3 — Michael's Debut

Time moves forward to 1884, the year of Michael Field's debut. Michael debates what form his poetry should take and settles on the verse drama. We hear an excerpt from Callirrhoë followed by newspaper clippings of its glowing reviews. The mysterious Michael Field is the toast of the town and journalists and literary types scramble to discover more about him. Robert Browning, the leading of poet of the day, manages to track down an address. He writes to Michael Field to congratulate him. Browning is surprised when a Miss Edith Cooper replies, sharing the true identity of Michael Field. When the papers find out, Katherine writes a fierce letter to Browning instructing him to better keep their secret as the world won't hear what they have to say from women's lips. 

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Scene 4 — Michael's Men

Since their public revelation the critics are starting to turn against Michael Field, but Katherine and Edith remain popular in the literary world. We see Katherine meeting Oscar Wilde at a party, and shortly after they meet the art critic Bernhard Berenson. Katherine and Edith follow Bernhard to Paris where Edith's infatuation with him tests the bonds of Michael Field. 

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Scene 5 — Michael's Vow

Bernhard is out of Katherine's and Edith's lives and now it is sickness which troubles Edith. After a serious illness the two make their way back to England, where Katherine writes It was Deep April on the train, a kind of marriage vow pledging to be lovers and poets together evermore. 

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Scene 6 — Closing Night

Time moves on and to Katherine's and Edith's dismay they sense they are being forgotten. The books aren't selling and the reviews, when they get them, are increasingly severe. But Michael catches a glimmer of hope. He finds himself back on the page in the journal where he began, the opening of Katherine's and Edith's first staged play. Perhaps a second debut, this time as a playwright, can help turn things around. It is not to be. The critics mainly hate the play and their response is crushing. 

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Scene 7 — The Forest

Obscurity continues to descend when Edith receives a telegram. Her father has gone missing on a hiking trip in the Alps. His body is eventually found at the bottom of a ravine, his head on his arm as though sleeping. To offer Edith comfort, Katherine writes the poem, The Forest. 

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Scene 8 — Ancient Things

Michael watches Katherine and Edith in their final home, No. 1 The Paragon, Richmond. They continue to write their journal, their life's greatest work, hoping one day they will find the audience they feel they deserve. Edith has been diagnosed with cancer. Katherine captures in the journal a tender moment where she watches Edith reading one of their sonnets, A Window Full of Ancient Things out loud. It tells of how aging adds to the beauty of things. Both women die of breast cancer less than a year apart. 

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Epilogue​

Michael has reached the end of the journal and muses on how the women's live on through their work, which lies there waiting to be discovered. The female chorus are heard singing again to Sappho.

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