 Although a respectable hit, Gilbert and Sullivan s "Princess Ida" is criticised for being routine. Arthur Sullivan tends to agree, finding he has run out of musical ideas for Gilbert s increasingly predictable stories. He would rather be composing a full opera, an idea that jeopardises not only the pair s relationship but the future of the stage company that Richard D Oyly Carte has built around the comic operas. Then Mrs Gilbert persuades her husband to take her to an exhibition of Japanese life...