In Londinium 211 AD the striking Zuleika, feisty daughter of Sudanese immigrants, and child bride of a Roman businessman, is bored with villa life. She is no longer bored when she meets Septimius Severus, the Roman Emperor.

Barrington Jedidiah Walker is 74 and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the 60s. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris. His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and...