Racing Demon

Synopsis

'Racing Demon' follows the lives of four Church of England clergy endeavouring to do their work. The battle to spread the 'word' becomes a race against time as the ever-changing needs a society force them into adopting very different roles for which they have considerably less aptitude! It is this climate of confusion that the heart-warming the Reverend Lionel Espy and his team struggle to make sense of their assignment, exacerbated by the arrival of a zealous young curate intent on putting the Church and the world to rights..

Our Review:

Ron Simpson - 16 February 2011

Twenty-one years ago Racing Demon won the Olivier Award for Best Play. Three years later it re-emerged as the first and finest part of David Hare’s “State of the Nation” trilogy. So how does it stand up in the second decade of the 21st century? The first impression is that the state of the nation hasn’t changed too much: issues to do with evangelicalism, fundamentalism, homosexuality and women priests still bedevil the Church of England and the popular press can be relied on to pursue spurious scandals with a due sense of moral outrage. 

Racing Demon still impresses enormously in the precision of its dialogue, its control of tone and its humanity and compassion, though now some characters, especially the women, appear unduly schematic. The Rev. Lionel Espy leads a team ministry in a London parish, generally impoverished, but, crucially, with middle-class and even upper-crust communicants. The three priests are clearly good men, working together i...

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