In early eighteenth-century Paris, the ambitious and sharp-witted young Voltaire is determined to use theatre, satire and poetry to rise beyond the constraints of his birth. But his irreverent talent brings him into conflict with France's powerful elite, where one barbed line can invite censorship, imprisonment or exile. At the centre of his formative years is his relationship with Adrienne Lecouvreur, the celebrated actress of the Comédie-Française