Synopsis

• Slings and Arrows is a Canadian TV series set at the fictional New Burbage Festival, a troubled Shakespearean festival similar to the real-world Stratford Festival. The program stars Paul Gross (Due South), Stephen Ouimette and Martha Burns.
  The blackly comic series first aired on Canada's Movie Central and The Movie Network channels in 2003, and received wide acclaim in the United States when it was shown there on the Sundance Channel two years later. Three seasons of six episodes each were filmed in total, with the final season airing in Canada in the summer of 2006 and in the United States in early 2007.
  
  Season One
  The show's central characters are actor/director Geoffrey Tennant (Gross), New Burbage artistic director Oliver Welles (Ouimette), and actress Ellen Fanshaw (Burns), who seven years previously collaborated on a legendary production of Hamlet. Midway through one of the performances, Geoffrey suffered a nervous breakdown, jumped into Ophelia's grave and then ran screaming from the stage. After that, he was committed to a psychiatric institution.
  When the series begins, Geoffrey is in Toronto, running a small company, "Theatre Sans Argent" (French for "Theatre Without Money") on the verge of being evicted. Oliver and Ellen have stayed at New Burbage, where Oliver has gradually been commercializing his productions and the festival. On the opening night of the New Burbage's A Midsummer Night's Dream Oliver sees Geoffrey on the news, chained to his theater. Heavily drunk, Oliver calls Geoffrey from a payphone and they argue about the past. Oliver then passes out in the street and is run over and killed by a truck carrying Canada's best hams.
  Geoffrey's blistering eulogy at Oliver's funeral about the state of the festival leads to him being asked to take over Oliver's job on a temporary basis. He passes on the job of directing the new production of Hamlet, however, and reluctantly accepts an old rival, Darren Nichols (Don McKellar), for the job. Darren's vision includes flames and horses, however, and one short duel later, Darren is out and Geoffrey has to take on the play after all. Complicating matters for Geoffrey are his former lover Ellen, now playing Gertrude and dating a much younger man, and Jack (Luke Kirby), the American film star hired to play Hamlet. Commenting acidly on all of this is Oliver, who has begun haunting Geoffrey as a ghost.
  In the two other main subplots, the festival's business manager, Richard Smith-Jones (McKinney) is seduced by American executive Holly Day (Jennifer Irwin) into trying to remake New Burbage into a shallow, commercialized "Shakespeareville" and apprentice actress Kate (Rachel McAdams) finds herself falling for Jack.
  
  Season Two
  The second season follows the New Burbage production of Macbeth.
  Richard is desperate for money to keep the company going, and Geoffrey, frustrated over what he sees as a lack of commitment from his actors, suggests downsizing the company. A new actor, Henry Breedlove (Geraint Wyn Davies), arrives to star in a production of Macbeth, which Geoffrey is reluctant to direct because of its supposed difficulty (though he doesn't believe in the curse).
  Richard finds funding in the form of a government grant that comes with a catch -- it may be used only for "rebranding." So, Richard hires an avant-garde advertising agency, Froghammer, to promote and rebrand the festival. Sanjay (Colm Feore), the head of Froghammer, launches a series of shock advertisements and manipulates Richard into accepting them.
  Elsewhere at the festival, Darren has returned from an artistic rebirth in Germany to direct a version of Romeo and Juliet in which the actors don't look at each other, much to the chagrin of the couple playing the lead roles. The festival's administrator, Anna Conroy (Susan Coyne), copes with an influx of interns and begins a romance with a playwright doing a reading at the festival.
  Ellen undergoes a tax audit, in preparation for which she is able to explain the "business purpose" of such theatrical necessities as lipstick and a push-up bra.
  Meanwhile, Geoffrey obsesses over directing Macbeth, antagonizes his cast and crew, and starts seeing Oliver's ghost again, all of which make Ellen fear for his sanity.
  
  Season Three
  The third season follows the New Burbage production of King Lear.
  The cast of Macbeth returns home after a successful run of the production on Broadway, where an old friend of Ellen's tells her to think about moving beyond New Burbage. As Richard tries to cope with being a success, Anna must deal with a group of stranded musicians and Darren is back in town, this time to direct a new musical, East Hastings.
  Geoffrey, meanwhile, has cast an aging theatre legend, Charles Kingman (William Hutt) as Lear, despite everyone's fears that the role will kill him. As rehearsals continue, Charles terrorizes Sophie (Sarah Polley), the actress playing Cordelia. Sophie is also involved in the rivalry between the young actors in Lear and the young actors in the musical, whose success soon outshadows the troubled Shakespeare production.
  As things spiral out of control, Oliver returns to haunt and help, and Geoffrey seeks therapy from an unlikely source.
  
• Season One (1) Episodes: (2004 - 2005)
• Episode 1: Oliver’s Dream
• Episode 2: Geoffrey Returns
• Episode 3: Madness in Great Ones
• Episode 4: Outrageous Fortune
• Episode 5: A Mirror Up to Nature
• Episode 6: Playing The Swan

• Season Two (2) Episodes: (2005 - 2006)
• Episode 1: Season's End
• Episode 2: Fallow Time
• Episode 3: Rarer Monsters
• Episode 4: Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair
• Episode 5: Steeped in Blood
• Episode 6: Birnam Wood

• Season Three (3) Episodes: (2006 - 2007)
• Episode 1: Divided Kingdom
• Episode 2: Vex Not His Ghost
• Episode 3: The Way Madness Lies
• Episode 4: Every Inch a King
• Episode 5: All Blessed Secrets
• Episode 6: The Promised End