BELLE is inspired by the true story of Dido Belle, a mixed race girl raised as an aristocratic Lady in England at the end of the 18th Century. Half black and half white, Dido is the result of a union between British Naval officer, Sir Admiral John Lindsay and a an African slave woman. When Dido’s mother dies, making her an orphan at the age of six, her father comes to claim her before returning to his family home at Kenwood House in Hampstead. There he beseeched his uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, to take the child in his care and to raise her alongside her cousin, Elizabeth, with equality and privilege in a manner befitting her aristocratic blood line. Prevented from marrying because of the colour of her skin, Dido must navigate her way past barriers of race and class. Although she has the affection of a loving family, society will place many constraints upon her which she must fight to overcome if she is to discover the path to true love and self-acceptance.