[1] Based on the 1925 novel by Virginia Woolf, and moving continually between the present and the past that is in the characters' heads, it covers a day in the life of Mrs Dalloway, whose husband is a prosperous politician in London.

On a beautiful morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway sets out from her large house in Westminster to choose the flowers for a party she is holding that evening.

A passionate old suitor, Peter Walsh, turns up, failing to disguise the turmoil he has created in his career and love life.

Septimus was a decorated officer in the First World War but is now collapsing under the strain of delayed shell-shock, in which he is paralysed by horrible flashbacks and consumed with guilt over the death of his closest comrade.

His wife Rezia tries to get him psychiatric help but the doctors she consults are little use: when one commits him to a mental hospital, he jumps from a window to his death.