In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser - is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London Blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.

• Columbia Pictures
• Albert Finney
• Tom Courtenay
• Edward Fox
• Zena Walker
• Eileen Atkins
• Michael Gough
• Cathryn Harrison
• Betty Marsden