Chinese Whispers is based on the bizarre life of Sir Edmund Backhouse, a confidence trickster of the Victorian age who pulled off audacious swindles against entire nations. Ian Lindays script is a highly-comic look at the notorious exploits of a man who claimed to have salacious affairs with everyone from Oscar Wilde to the Empress Dowager Cixi of China. Amongst his stings, Backhouse tricked the British Government over an arms deal, John Browns Shipyard over a large quantity of battleships and the American Banknote Company regarding an order for printing one hundred million banknotes.