Because of the dreary new-age Marxist plays being performed at The Thistle, audiences are deserting it and going to watch Bear Baiting. As well, Good Queen Bess threatens to shut the playhouse down because of sub-plots rumored to be taking place there. Only the efforts of the Earl of Oxford, Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon and Julia, the Queen's young ward (fresh from a convent in Paris) can save Elizabethan Theatre.