Will has promised his wife Anne that he will be home in good time for a quiet Christmas with just the family. But when Marlowe, Kate and even the usually horrible Robert Greene look likely to be facing a miserable lonely Christmas in London, Will's big heart gets the better of him and he asks them all back with him to Stratford.

Things get Dickensian when a mysterious stranger inspires Will to get Greene to mend his evil ways with the help of three Christmas spirits.

A plague has hit London and Will and Kate are isolating in Will's London lodgings just before Christmas,