Quacks

`Quacks' is a medical comedy set in 1840s London, and follows four competing friends who are pioneers of medicine. During this era, medicine was far from a safe practice and was still in its infancy, with patients facing a good chance of a grim fate. Robert is an ambitious showman surgeon, famed for the speed with which he can amputate a limb, William is an "alienist", the term used at the time for psychiatrist, and John is a hedonistic anaesthetist. Finally, Caroline, the wife of Robert, wishes to make her own successes and progress in the heavily patriarchal Victorian world. The group also work alongside Dr Hendrick, the president of the hospital, the physician to royalty, and a conservative misanthrope.