How did a tiny, isolated, backward area of Italy come to have over 100 theatres? Many of them are architectural gems and still in working order today. What drove almost every small town or village to demand – and get – its own theatre? Award-winning architect Ian Arnott discovered a small region of great character and beauty, 100 miles by 50 miles, little known even to the rest of Italy, which, in the eighteenth century, with a population of less than a million, had 113 functioning theatres.

Drawing together history and fiction, The Web and the Wing shows how power and wealth do not guarantee happiness – and although this story is of a by-gone age, it is still relevant today. Set in the aftermath of the 1914-18 war, it opens on Armistice Day, in the Lancashire village of Ardleagh and ends at Christmas 1930, in Ardleagh Hall, home of the Earl of Eglinton. It tells of the love of the Earl’s son James and Claire, whose father was killed in one of the Earl’s mines. It is a love thwarted by class distinction and greed.