Already, after a period of fierce forbearance and self-censorship, the culture warriors are rearming. Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, has been lecturing the workers, telling them to improve their attitude to the end of lockdown. He tells the public ‘they’re a little too willing to stay at home’.

Conservative MPs are settling back into their comfort zone, making their timeless complaint that the public are once more letting the politicians down.

I am walking round the garden, wondering whether Sir Graham ever asks himself why anyone should trust a government which refuses to trust them.

I think of the great James Baldwin: ‘Allegiance, after all, has to work two ways; and one can grow weary of an allegiance which is not reciprocal.’

I go back into the house. I make tea. Right now I can only do the simple things. But by doing simple things right, my plan is to beat the devil.

About the Author

David Hare’s first full-length play was produced in 1970. Since then he has written over thirty stage plays and thirty screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy’s View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn and The Moderate Soprano. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby and The White Crow among others, while his television films include Licking Hitler, the Worricker Trilogy, Collateral and Roadkill. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, five of the top hundred were his.

by the same author

PLAYS ONE

(Slag, Teeth ’n’ Smiles, Knuckle, Licking Hitler, Plenty)

PLAYS TWO

(Fanshen, A Map of the World, Saigon, The Bay at Nice, The Secret Rapture)

PLAYS THREE

(Skylight, Amy’s View, The Judas Kiss, My Zinc Bed)

RACING DEMON

MURMURING JUDGES

THE ABSENCE OF WAR

VIA DOLOROSA

THE BLUE ROOM

(from La Ronde by Schnitzler)

THE BREATH OF LIFE

THE PERMANENT WAY

STUFF HAPPENS

THE VERTICAL HOUR

GETHSEMANE

BERLIN/WALL

THE POWER OF YES

SOUTH DOWNS

BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS

THE RED BARN

THE MODERATE SOPRANO

I’M NOT RUNNING

adaptations

PLATONOV by Chekhov

THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA by Lorca

ENEMIES by Gorky

YOUNG CHEKHOV

THE MASTER BUILDER by Ibsen

PETER GYNT after Ibsen

screenplays

COLLECTED SCREENPLAYS

(Wetherby, Paris by Night, Strapless, Heading Home, Dreams of Leaving)

THE HOURS

prose

ACTING UP

ASKING AROUND: BACKGROUND TO THE DAVID HARE TRILOGY

WRITING LEFT-HANDED

OBEDIENCE, STRUGGLE AND REVOLT

THE BLUE TOUCH PAPER

Copyright

First published in 2020
by Faber & Faber Limited,
74-77 Great Russell Street,
London WC1B 3DA

This ebook edition first published in 2020

David Hare is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Excerpt from Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick.
Copyright © 1979 by Elizabeth Hardwick, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.