Marlene hosts a dinner party in a London restaurant to celebrate her promotion to managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. Her guests are five women from the past: Isabella Bird, the adventurous Victorian traveller; Lady Nijo, the Buddhist nun who travelled on foot through Japan; Dull Gret, who led a crowd of women on a charge through hell in a Bruegel painting; Pope Joan, the transvestite early female pope; and last but not least Patient Griselda, an obedient wife out of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As the evening continues the stories of all five women influence the impending crisis in Marlene's own life. Filmed live at the National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre in 2019.