Old John Aubrey takes his audience by the hand and, with a twinkle in his eye, leads you through a day late in his life, launching into wicked tales. He regales you with tales of his contemporaries - Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, Nell Gwyn - and stories gleaned as a child from folk who knew the likes of Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh. By turns he is a stand-up comic, a philosopher, a lodger in a garret room suffering crying babies and other noisy co-tenants. Once he starts speaking to you he is like the Ancient Mariner - you cannot choose but hear.