A brand-new musical drama, starring television favourites Rachael Stirling and Alec Newman, is streaming on YouTube. Love in the Lockdown follows two creatives as they navigate the early stages of a relationship through the first lockdown in March 2020. In a virtual format we’ve not seen before, each of the nine episodes is released in real-time on the one-year anniversary of key dates from lockdown 1.0.  

Stirling (The Bletchley Circle, Detectorists) stars as Emilia, a medieval musician, embarking on a long-distance relationship with Giovanni, played by Newman (Waterloo Road, Star Trek: Enterprise). Over the three months, played out in real time, the couple become closer and work on a project together based on Boccaccio’s The Decameron, which has been described as a “14th Century box set” of 100 stories told by young people to pass the quarantine during the Black Death in Florence in 1348. Like so many, their relationship is tested and they must face personal, and artistic challenges to find the truth. 

Written by playwright and soprano Clare Norburn, with a cameo from comedian and impressionist Jon Culshaw as the voice of Boris Johnson, and music from medieval music group The Telling, who are renowned for their immersive concert plays, this piece presents us with something we’ve not seen before.

Of the play, Stirling said: “Clare’s beautiful piece dramatises a lockdown experience of a live musician with the generous, funny and painful insight of her first-hand experience. She has written a drama for every creative who was told to retrain.”

Episodes of Love in the Lockdown are being released episodically. The first two episodes are available on demand now with successive episodes being made available on 23 March at 8pm, 24 March at 5.15pm, 15 April at 5pm, 5 May at 10am, 13 May at 6pm, 15 May at 11am, culminating on 23 May at 7pm. It will be available to watch in its entirety from 23 – 31 May. Although it will be available to watch for free, donations would be greatly appreciated.

A donation link, YouTube link, and more information can be found here.