When Sam, Melissa, and Wakanyote auditioned for a Kenyan musical, they could not have imagined they had begun on the path to the defining moment in their international careers. And now the future has never been so promising, or so daunting. They are performers on ‘Mo Faya’ (formerly called ‘Lwanda’), a musical which unexpectedly attracted the attention of a UK team who offered to back and transform the show for a performance at The Edinburgh Festival in 2009 and a 5-month UK tour.

Things are rarely as they seem.

With less than eight months to the Festival, the Brits have secured neither venues nor funding, and the UK producer has just quit amidst serious professional differences. It is now down to Mo Faya creators Eric Wainaina and Sheba Hirst to make this dream a reality. With no experience in UK theatre and limited industry connections, they will throw everything they have to get to Edinburgh and beyond.

Sam grew up in the tough Eastlands of Nairobi and has worked his way through crime and delinquency to be one of Kenya’s leading screen and stage stars. He is respected and hardworking but when he’s not working, he’s drinking. Melissa found herself living in a slum and addicted to drugs at a young age. She conquered her addiction and redefined herself through the arts and wants the big time. How will she cope with the stresses of living and performing abroad, away from her new husband, and even newer baby? In his mid-fifties, dreadlocks down to his ankles, Wakanyote is a theatre veteran who remembers a time when theatre was protest, when scripts had to be submitted to the police and performances were regularly shut down. Excited to be a part of an explicitly critical show, he is struggling to keep up with the physical demands of musical theatre.

Here is a group of Kenyan producers and performers at their apex, celebrities in every sense of the word. But celebrities in a very small pond. Their world is about to get a whole lot bigger, more challenging, and complex. They will return to being the underdogs, the rookies, bottom of their game.

In what is set to be a colourful clash of egos, a test of determination and grit, a rollercoaster of highs and lows, the blood sweat and tears of forging an international phenomenon, this documentary follows the turbulent partnership between UK producers and Kenyan cast on the road to Edinburgh and international stardom.