In his declining years, Orson Welles is directing a production of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright.

Olivier is fresh from his triumphant theatrical portrayal of vaudevillian Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer and is about to reprise the role in the film adaptation.

Critic Kenneth Tynan also figures in the plot, which debates the merits of stage versus screen, the internal struggle that theatrical performers endure when contemplating a leap to films, and the ways that the studio system frustrated the careers of individual artists.

The cast included Jeff Still as Orson Welles, John Judd as Laurence Olivier, Susan Bennett as Joan Plowright, Lee Roy Rogers as Vivien Leigh, Tracy Letts as Ken Tynan, and Ian Westerfer as the stagehand Sean.

The cast included John Hodgkinson as Orson Welles, Adrian Lukis as Laurence Olivier, Louise Ford as Joan Plowright, Gina Bellman as Vivien Leigh, Edward Bennett as Kenneth Tynan, and Ciaran O'Brien as the stagehand Sean.