Baba Shakespeare, the first ever stage adaptation of the award winning 1965 Merchant Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah, (by director James Ivory and writer, Ruth Jhabvala), follows the adventures of a family of British travelling players, in post-colonial India as they journey from desert palace to hill station, adapting their rich fare of Shakespeare (including Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet) to a wide range of audiences, circumstances and ever more slender means.

While the Buckingham troupe struggles to survive against a changing world and the rising Bollywood film industry, daughter Lizzie labours against the perils of love (in the form of Sanju, a handsome Indian playboy, and a beautiful Indian starlet rival) to define her place in the world as colonial child, young woman and actress. As the stakes rise in both the private and professional worlds, the pressure of cultural differences force painful choices about identity and ultimate allegiances.

Baba Shakespeare is inspired by the true-life experiences of actress Felicity Kendal and the troupe of touring players, founded by her parents, actors Geoffrey Kendal and Laura Liddell. Set in the early 1960's when India was just emerging from colonial rule and asserting itself as a modern country, the struggle for cultural supremacy is epitomised in the rivalry between Manjula, a rising star of the "new" world of film, and Lizzie, a British theatre actress of the "old" school. As the conclusion closes in, characters, cultures and art forms clash and assert themselves, the conflict illuminated through the wit and wisdom of Shakespeare as the troupe perform some of his great classic scenes.