Before there was social media, there were peerage books, reference books featuring the who’s who of British aristocracy. The year is 1936 and American author Simon Robinson has traveled to Interwar London to bask in the glow of his recently published, yet little read, novel. There he hatches a plan to create a modern peerage directory, one that will include his smart-set cadre of friends, such as American socialite Wallis Simpson, who just happens to be keeping company with King Edward VIII. Partnering with the illegitimate son of a publishing baron and a beguiling typist, Robinson is on the verge of making a mint. That’s until the King’s abdication of the throne threatens to sink both his project and his budding romance.

Told over cocktails in the Observation Bar of the legendary RMS Queen Mary ocean liner as it chugs towards New York, The Abdication Publication Crisis features a broad cast of characters torn straight from the gilded pages of history. Robert Colton, author of the best-selling Pompeii: Murder in Ancient Rome, has fashioned a radio play that winks at classic writers like P.G. Wodehouse, yet one that will also resonate with contemporary audiences. Featuring the voices of Seth Warner, Kristian Byrne, Max Palasi, and Kim Heron. The Abdication Publication Crisis is a comedy for all walks of society.