Larry Brill takes a step back-back in time that is-to imagine what today's TV news would have looked like if it had been invented back in the days of Charles Dickens. The result is a hilarious romp through jolly old England, following the misadventures of a common street performer, a patterer named Leeds Merriweather. Lightning strikes, in the form of a drunken, chance encounter with Benjamin Franklin, and Leeds is inspired to assemble a zany cast of characters to become history's first celebrity newscaster. But at the peak of his meteoric rise to fame and fortune, Leeds has to risk it all for the love of a conniving wench.