Second Death

To die, perchance to dream – or could we choose some other option?  Three murders, two suicides and a judicial execution.  An intriguing story of death, life and virtual immortality - at the end of a 13 amp plug.

Despite his A-list celebrity status, surgeon Hamish McAllister is finding that there are drawbacks to playing god. The established church, for one. They’d like to crucify him. 

Elizabeth died.  But now that she’s alive again, who is she?  And why can’t she catch? 

Geraldine is dying for revenge.  But she has to be dead to get it.  She never wanted to be brought back to life – especially to spend it in a wheelchair. 

Richard wants his dead wife back.  But how can he forget what she and Hamish did to him, and live happily ever after? 

In its original form, Second Death was written as a short television play for a competition run by the BBC Writersroom.  It claimed the dubious success of coming in the top seventy five (out of 600 or so scripts submitted), and actually receiving some sort of review from the organisers.  This, in itself, may not sound much of an achievement, but it encouraged me to write a revised version.  This received a very positive reaction from one reviewer, who recommended that it be expanded into a full-length piece.  I took the opportunity of a writers' group at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, to create this two-act stage version.

Set in the not too distant future, this full-length play charts the moral dilemma of a surgeon, thrust into the unforgiving limelight of media attention because of his dramatic breakthrough in resuscitating the dead, and forced to choose between professional failure, and his own humanitarian instincts.

Second Death has now been written as a full-length novel, and is available as a paperback and as an e-book from Amazon Kindle.

© Nigel Holloway 2023