In ancient China, the young emperor Wu is kept a virtual prisoner in his palace by his scheming guardian, Li Si. For Wu, the world outside the Forbidden City is a dangerous place. But when he hears Xiao, a young peasant girl, talk of the most beautiful sound on earth - the song of the nightingale - it's too much to resist. The two embark on an adventure that will take them across mountaintops and waterfalls, past chattering monkeys and fire-belching dragons to the far reaches of his kingdom. But Wu has an ulterior motive that could threaten the peace of the kingdom. Neil Duffield's reworking of Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairytale, 'The Nightingale' (1844), like his earlier adaptation of Andersen's 'The Snow Queen', brings a timeless classic into the 21st century.