This is the story of a special time and some extraordinary people. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the architectural wonder of Prague became the setting for some of the harshest communist repression in the Cold War. Yet this bleak period produced an unusual cast of characters who decided to stake their lives in the defence of human dignity. Vaclav Havel was their leader.

Under constant pressure from the regime, and frequently jailed or imprisoned for their efforts, the signatories of Charter 77 went on to lead the resistance and spearhead a revolution: the Velvet Revolution of 1989. For a time it seemed as if a philosopher-king had overturned the forces of totalitarianism, with the future of Czechoslovakia there for the making.