- In Angels In America, the central character, Prior Walter, is spectrally visited by two of his ancestors — “prior” instances of the name “Prior Walter”. Both Priors died of the plague — one during the medieval Black Death, and the other presumably during the 17th Century Great Plague of London.
- The latter plague was dramatised in a Doctor Who story called “The Visitation”, in which crash-landed aliens conspire to wide out humanity with a super-virus. But they botch it, accidentally causing the Great Fire of London, which effectively ends the plague.
- In 1984, while I was watching “The Visitation” on TV, I heard two muffled bangs in the distance. Later that night I learned that those bangs were the sound of the infamous hit-man Christopher Dale Flannery attempting to assassinate undercover drug-squad cop Michael Drury, who lived in the house around the corner from us. (This event was dramatised in the Australian television mini-series Blue Murder.) Flannery fled Drury’s kitchen and escaped via our backyard. Christopher Dale Flannery, in our fucking backyard!
[ tags: aids, angels-in-america, cops, crime, doctorwho, haunting, hit-men, plague ]
