The BBC is right to reject David Hare’s Covid drama

If the BBC’s constant tension with various Conservative ministers weren’t enough, now it has another name on its list of critics. This weekend veteran playwright Sir David Hare launched an attack on the corporation for refusing to broadcast his Covid play – and for shunning dramas about the pandemic more generally. ‘It strikes me as so derelict,’ the long-term grandee of the National Theatre vented to the Observer.

Does it now? Or could it be that, with Covid cases once again sitting at the top of the news – and the usual suspects crying out for a return to restrictions – our national broadcaster has wisely decided that viewers might appreciate a break from a subject that’s now approaching its two-year anniversary at the centre of our collective universe. And not a moment too soon, either.

I speak as someone who has a bit of a soft spot for Hare’s play – not least as it was the first production I saw last autumn after six months of being starved of live theatre.