Racing Demon

David Hare, Racing Demon (Faber and Faber, 1990)

David Hare’s Racing Demon made it onto Michael Billington’s list of the 101 Greatest Plays, and since it relates to the Church of England I thought I’d read it.  This is the first play I have read since studying A Level English at School and I actually quite enjoyed reading, rather than watching (although I can’t wait for theatres to re-open).  Racing Demon tells the story of the Rev Lionel Espy, a vicar in a team ministry in inner city London.  Charlie Allen, the Bishop of Southwark has taken it upon himself to get rid of Lionel, largely it seems because a Conservative MP with whom he plays squash, objects to the liberal social gospel that gets propounded in the parish in place of a focus on the sacrament of communion.  In his efforts, the Bishop of Southwark allies with the new evangelical curate who has just started working with Lionel and doesn’t like the ‘lack of Jesus’ in his approach to Christianity.  Lionel, however, is, at least in some ways, smarter than he looks and although he gave up the freehold on his parish he entered into an agreement with the suffragan Bishop of Kensington that he would only do this if he had his full support for permanence of tenure.  Lionel is also strongly supported by his two team ministry colleagues Harry Henderson and Donald ‘Streaky’ Bacon. 

The play has obvious parallels with The Rev tv show.  But it most reminded me, albeit in fictional form, of the argument put forward by Andrew Brown and Linda Woodhead in That Was the Church that Was (2016) [Interestingly, Brown and Woodhead don’t seem to mention David Hare’s play].  There are also strong echoes of the Faith in the City report that would likely still very much have been fresh at the time the play was written.  The key dilemma, perhaps expressed best by the agnostic character of Frances in the play, is how to be religious in a way that doesn’t impose but is effective and isn’t just a form of ‘social consciousness’.  Lionel is not an altogether attractive figure, and his wife and children have clearly suffered from his large number of social commitments.  Evangelism doesn’t come out of the play particularly well.  The ‘old boys’ network of the church is exposed, and the outdated attitudes to homosexuality and women’s ordination are attacked.  It’s a fun play, but slightly disturbing for a liberal ordinand.  Perhaps most disturbing is that fact that nothing much seems to have changed over the past 20-years since the play was written.