Cover

Landing Page

DAVID HARE

Beat the Devil

A Covid Monologue

Contents

1. Title Page
2. Premiere Production
3. Epigraph
4. Beat the Devil
5. About the Author
6. By the Same Author
7. Copyright

Premiere Production

Beat the Devil premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London, on 27 August 2020.

Performed by Ralph Fiennes

Director Nicholas Hytner
Designer Bunny Christie
Lighting Designer Jon Clark
Sound Designer Gareth Fry
Composer George Fenton

Epigraph

Dr Z. had studied the body and its workings and liked to say: We human beings are, au fond, put together quite simply. Yes, quite simply. The part that is complicated, even we as scientists are ignorant of that.

Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights

BEAT THE DEVIL

BEAT THE DEVIL

I’m waking and I’m trying to wash the taste of sewage out of my mouth. It isn’t easy to do. My doctor had warned me I might lose my sense of taste and smell. They say it’s a common symptom. I don’t have that symptom. I have a different symptom. Everything tastes of sewage.

When I go to the tap at five in the morning and drink the fresh water, all I can taste is sewage.

Maybe I’m not keeping up with developments, but I haven’t yet seen this symptom listed as common.

When I ask questions of medical professionals, I’m getting used to the answer: ‘We don’t yet know.’

*

A couple of weeks before, sometime in early March, a piece of bad news arrived wrapped in protein.

On Monday, I’d gone into the editing room off Oxford Circus to help deal with Episode Two of Roadkill, a new TV series I’ve written about a Conservative politician who is forward-looking, intelligent, charismatic and popular. It’s not based on anyone in real life.

Television screenwriters will tell you that in any four-part structure Episode Two is always the most difficult. This one has severe bruising from a producers’ pile-on, with a lot of people from all over the place giving contradictory notes. The result is a bugger’s muddle.

I’ve become convinced the whole thing will benefit from my mature and steadying hand.

All cutting rooms are fetid, space is at a premium in the West End, and the complex machinery thrums ominously warm, not enough to fry an egg, but maybe to coddle one. The three of us – director, editor and I – squeeze into the attic space and do an honourable day’s work. At some point the director, Michael Keillor, a strong, rangy young man from Dundee, with Billy Connolly hair, makes us all a welcome cup of tea. We share a plate of biscuits.

On Tuesday, Michael rings to tell me that the previous night, without warning, when he got home, he collapsed.

And this morning he can’t move and he can’t breathe.

*

This thing’s kicking around like I’ve swallowed a Catherine wheel. I don’t know from day to day what to expect.