Plague Over England

On 20th October, 1953, Sir John Gielgud, then at the zenith of his theatrical career, was arrested in a Chelsea public lavatory

He pleaded guilty the next day to the charge of persistently importuning male persons for immoral purposes

In the prim, homophobic Britain of the 1950s, Gielgud's offence attracted vicious criticism from public and press alike and threatened to terminate his career

A few weeks later, however, when Gielgud opened in London in a new play, something extraordinary happened ...

Nicholas de Jongh's Plague Over England is not just a dramatized account of a scandal, it relates the country's political mood and depicts a nation in the grip of a gay witch-hunt

Characters

Detective Chief Inspector Bellinger: about 36
Rayner, Lord Goddard: Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
Mr Justice Percival Lightbourne: a High Court judge
Daniel Arlington: 40ish; American
Police Constable Terry Fordham: early - mid 20s
Matthew Barnsbury: civil servant
Dame Sybil Thorndike: actress
Sir John Gielgud: 49, later 71
Dr Ambrose Quentin
Gregory Lightbourne: 19, later 41
Douglas Witherby
Vera Dromgoole
Brian Mandeville
Chiltern Moncrieffe, theatre critic
Sir David Maxwell Fyfe
Bert
Binkie Beaumont
Fred