It is London in the 1890s; amid the fog, the noise and bustle a three-masted ship arrives in the docks. At the rail is Alberto Pelucci, an immigrant from Italy, dreaming of romance and adventure. Adventure enough is the appalling room of his first night's stay, but romance blossoms when he falls for Alice, gentle and undemonstrative and the complete opposite to his noisy exuberance. Only on their wedding night does he realise that his bride will never share his passion for physical pleasures. And so when Alberto meets Queenie Dawson - sensuous star of the music halls - his ordered new life is flung into turmoil. "Hearts and Farthings" is the heartwarming, moving saga of a man torn between two women, and of children born in the last, bittersweet days before the First World War...