After William Shakespeare / Jeff James

WINTER'S TALE

What happens when you believe something so strongly that it destroys your whole life? And what do you do when you realise you were wrong?

Leo Winter has everything. He’s a billionaire tech entrepreneur: the co-founder of App-Zapp, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest and most successful companies. Hermione, Leo’s wife, is pregnant with their second child. And Leo is about to launch Bohemia, an immersive virtual reality experience that will revolutionise the tech industry, and change the world.

When the launch of Bohemia starts to go wrong, Leo finds himself at loggerheads with his co-founder and best friend, Paul. Suddenly, the idea comes into Leo’s head that Paul and Hermione are having an affair, and that the unborn baby is the product of this ultimate betrayal. Leo is wrong, but he has the power, the money and the lawyers to pursue this idea until it destroys his marriage, his company and his life. Leo is as powerful as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, and no one is able to persuade him that he is wrong.

Leo’s baby daughter, Rose, is born in the midst of this chaos created by her father. Within days of being born, she enters Bohemia, and she grows up inside the metaverse that Leo has created. Sixteen years pass, and Rose must fight to escape from virtual reality and find her way back to the real world, where she meets her father for the first time. Can she forgive him?

The Winter’s Tale is one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote. It is an incredible story of how passion can tear people apart, and how only time can bring redemption. Jeff James takes Shakespeare’s story right into the present day, transplanting the story to 21st century California and forcing us to see how much human nature stays the same across the centuries, driven still by the forces of love and jealousy, ambition and hope.

• Recommended for ages 14 and up | Contains strong language