Of all the stories of all the renaissance-era luminaries of note, what was it about John Dee that brought Rufus and Damon together? “My father was a historian,” says Rufus, “and he would have known more about John Dee than I did – at least going into this. Damon has always had very strong feelings about the English and our spiritual wellbeing – and that has poured through him throughout his life as a musician. I think one thing about this story that was very attractive for both of us is that it’s about someone who has been relatively neglected by history. It’s easy to think of John Dee as someone firmly embedded in metaphysics. But he was an absolutely monumental presence in the 16^th century – a scientist who really moved our understanding of life forward on a scale comparable to Darwin or Newton. Even his scrying and his attempts to contact God – it was all undertaken with all the scientific knowledge he had immersed.”

Rufus puts his coffee down and returns to the action. Some props dotted about the place include:

An Elizabethan table

A chess board with slightly oversized pieces.

Cutlery

A foot bath

WALSINGHAM