Mrs. Henderson Presents

“The show must go on, but the clothes must come off.”

Mrs. Laura Henderson (Judi Dench), newly widowed and comfortably rich, buys the Windmill Theatre in London in 1931 to give her days a purpose. When the continuous variety revue she starts with manager Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) gets copied and the money begins to drain, she proposes the sort of risqué acts Paris is known for. Stephen Frears gives her a widow's quiet and a stubborn streak, and she keeps writing the cheques.