Simon Forman rose to wealth and fame in Elizabethan London as doctor to the giants of the Elizabethan theatre. He was also an astrologer and schemer - and perhaps a spy. His "playbook" contains the first eye-witness accounts of plays at the Rose and Globe theatres. This lively account of his charismatic and ambitious personality comes from the intimate diary he kept, detailing his law cases, his battles with the establishment and his active sex life - a record of promiscuity as vivid as Pepys or Boswell.