A cathedral tower, advertising an AIDS benefit performance of T.S. Eliot's 'Murder in the cathedral' in Hong Kong. Colour lithograph by Ulrikka S. Gernes and Dermat Tatlow, ca. 1995, for AIDS Concern.

'Murder in the cathedral' is a poetic drama that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170; the action occurs between December 2 (hence the date of the staging of the play) and December 29, 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in France.