BEAT THE DEVIL recounts writer and director David Hare’s experience contracting Covid-19 on the day the UK Government made the first decisive intervention that led to lockdown. Suffering a pageant of apparently random symptoms, he recalls the delirium of his illness, which, mixed with fear, dream, honest medicine and politics, creates a story of furious urgency and power. Based off the first play to re- open London stages after the lockdown, in which Ralph Fiennes gave one of his greatest performances in a sell-out run, this film is humorous and incisive as it energetically examines our universal battle against the Pandemic through one person’s journey from illness to recovery to survivor’s rage and ultimately, gratitude.