Peter Luke (1919–2005)

This play, which deals with a less-than ordinary man who becomes Pope after having been denied the priesthood for twenty years, is a thinly disguised paean to the Catholic church. All the hierarchy that oppose him at the start become his supporters and friends in the end, while the villains are distinctly Protestant anti-papists. In the Catholic-Protestant battle, this one definitely takes sides. It avoids all hard questions of doctrine and dogma, while creating a pope who wishes to give show more away all the Vatican's treasures to help the poor, and has the rest of the hierarchy assisting him, until he is killed by an angry Protestant. While I suspect it was written more to shame the Catholic church than laud it, in the end the play appears to be giving full credit to the idea that the only problem with Catholicism is that it has been corrupted by "bad" men who have risen to the highest throne, and that through resurrecting "honest" Catholic doctrine, the world would become much sunnier - except you'd still have to contend with the Protestants. Overall, the piety is off-putting, and the play has the tone of a church basement play. I can't say I enjoyed it. show less

I don't know how closely this short play is based upon the original semi-autobiographical novel* but it was apparently successful enough to launch the new career of Peter Luke, a former artist/soldier. I can't believe I'm going to say this but I think today's standards might be a little higher. The story is of an angry, debt-ridden, foul-mouthed, ill-mannered, unsuccessful misanthrope with a kind heart (I imagine a Mr. Roper from Three's Company) who has dreamed his whole life of becoming a show more priest so he can finally reform the church to his liking. When he is suddenly elected Pope (named Hadrian after the last and only English Pope), you'd think the hilarity would ensue, right? No. Dry, dull, and parochial in its grasp of basic church structure and theology. And in the end, it was all just a dream. For all the complaints about the ending of the TV show LOST, at least they didn't take that route...

Just silly.

*The only reason I read this was because the online seller that I purchased it from apparently didn't understand that it was not the actual "Hadrian VII" novel written by Frederick Rolfe that I was expecting to get. Either that or he just suckered me knowing that nobody would buy it otherwise. show less