Verdict: Hare lets his demons off the hook
People on the political Left often have an awkward time with God. They don’t like to admit a debt, but they can’t completely shake His influence either.
Perhaps that’s why Racing Demon is one of Sir David Hare’s best plays and makes a strong centrepiece for the Crucible’s season of his work, directed by the theatre’s prime mover, Daniel Evans.
In this 1990 drama, Hare is struggling with his political conscience — even though his theme is a crisis in the Church of England.
Jamie Parker as Tony Ferris, the new evangelical curate who longs for a full church, in the Crucible Theatre's production of Sir David Hare's Racing Demon
The big question for the Anglican communion with its empty churches — and for Hare at a time when Mrs Thatcher had vanquished the Left — is: where is a person to put their faith?
The main character is an elderly Brixton vicar called Lionel. He’s a decent old stick but, like his cardy, has grown limp with age. His leather jacketed curate Tony, on the other hand, has priapic evangelical tendencies.
A tweedy gay ally is being stalked by the gutter press. And a mutual friend, Streaky Bacon, is a cheery duffel-coated bod who’d see the upside of eternal damnation.
It’s a fond, gently teasing portrait of the clergy back in the days before John Sentamu became the Archbishop of York and the ordainment of women priests, when the Church of England looked like a white man’s club adrift from society.
But Hare lets himself off the hook by failing to look at the religious roots of his radicalism, leaving Tony’s ex-girlfriend to peddle a secular message about charity overseas.
Still, Evans’s production is thoroughly engaging, on a set by Tom Rogers marked by no more than an austere grid on the back wall, which doubles as everything from trendy ecclesiastical stained glass to inner city tower block.
Jamie Parker’s Tony is a grammar-school populist curate. Malcolm Sinclair’s tortured Lionel is a stooped sceptic, while Jane Wymark stokes guilt as his neglected wife.
Ian Gelder is a bookish but devoted pastor laid low by smears. Matthew Cottle’s Streaky is the Boris Johnson of the Anglican communion. And Emma Hamilton lays on a litany of saucy temptations.
Even after 20 years, Hare’s docu-drama remains a lively and thoughtful work, but it could have been a great and salient one if it fully faced up to its own demons.
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