Widow, poet and cat-lover Fran Lamb, a writer for local newspaper the Winkham Weekly Snooze, decides to start up her own creative writing group. She is joined at the Winkham Memorial Institute by glamorous P.E. teacher Penny, shy librarian Janet and Annie, a housewife whose mysterious anxiety causes her to substitute the correct words for entirely the wrong ones. From this unpromising beginning, the four women soon form plans to write and perform a play about Boadicea, ancient East Anglican queen and feminist icon. Over the course of several weeks, truths are gradually shared along with tea and vodka, and soon Fran, Janet, Penny and Annie find themselves needing to draw on heroic reserves of their own.4 women