[1] It is a fictionalized account of life on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s, featuring real-life characters who lived there at the time, including Leonard Cohen, Charmian Clift and George Johnston.

Set in the early 1960s, A Theatre for Dreamers tells the story of 18-year-old Erica, who escapes from her controlling father in London to live among the colony of writers, painters and musicians on the small Greek island of Hydra.

Erica befriends and then observes Hydra's circle of talented but troubled bohemians, including fictionalised versions of famed real-life characters Charmian Clift, George Johnston, Axel Jensen, Marianne Ihlen, Gregory Corso, Gordon Merrick and a young, as yet undiscovered, Leonard Cohen.

The book also attracted favourable reviews, with Alex Preston describing it in The Observer as “a blissful piece of escapism and a powerful meditation on art and sexuality”,[3] Alex Peake-Tomkinson calling it “supremely accomplished” in The Spectator[4] and Suzi Feay for The Financial Times commenting that, “Samson is an intensely sensual writer, conjuring up blue skies, the tang of wild herbs, the vivid splash of bougainvillea ... As good as a Greek holiday, and may be the closest we get this year”.

[12] The publication was also due to be accompanied by live events in April 2020 in Manchester, Birmingham and London, featuring Samson and her husband, the musician David Gilmour.