[2][3] The script requires a large cast, with a core of actors prepared to learn extensive parts and portray passionate and sustained emotion.
[4] It begins as educated Anglican clergyman the Reverend William Mompesson receives the living from his benefactors, the Saville [6] family.
A 'King's Man', he is replacing the previous Puritan incumbent, Thomas Stanley, who has refused to comply with the 1662 Act of Uniformity which makes use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer compulsory.
Both rectors have doubts at their actions but eventually the dying ceases and the survivors learn they have been successful with no other cases of plague occurring in the county.
Some humour is included by the mad orphan boy Bedlam who sings and dances through the worst times and the two cantankerous old yokels Unwin and Merril.