Chinese Whispers

The play (a comedy) features key episodes in the life of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (1873-1944), second baronet, sinologist, author, benefactor, charlatan, swindler, fraudster, and the subject of Hugh Trevor-Roper’s insightful biography “A Hidden Life: The Enigma of Sir Edmund Backhouse” (Macmillan, 1976) also published in USA under the title “The Hermit of Peking”.