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Aug. 16 (UPI) -- Harry Potter icon and Schindler's List actor Ralph Fiennes is to star in the London stage production of Beat the Devil: A Covid Monologue, the show's website said. Nicholas Hytner is directing David Hare's one-person, 50-minute play, which is slated to run at the Bridge Theatre from Aug. 27 through Oct. 31.
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"On the same day that the U.K. government finally made the first of two decisive interventions that led to a conspicuously late lockdown, David Hare contracted Covid-19," a message on the play's website said.
"Nobody seemed to know much about it then, and many doctors are not altogether sure they know much more today. Suffering a pageant of apparently random symptoms, Hare recalls the delirium of his illness, which mixed with fear, dream, honest medicine and dishonest politics to create a monologue of furious urgency and power. Covid-19 seems to be a sort of dirty bomb, thrown into the body to cause havoc."
The Bridge Theatre said it expects to provide 250 socially distanced seats per performance.
Hare's plays include Amy's View and The Judas Kiss. He has also penned the screenplays for the films The Hours and The Reader.
Hytner helmed Miss Saigon, The History Boys and One Man, Two Guvnors.
Most live performances, as well as TV and film productions, have been canceled, delayed, conducted remotely or shut down in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
