In a luxury hotel suite in a poor country with a terrible human rights record, a wealthy man from a First World nation is struck down with a fever that gives him constant bouts of vomiting. Stuck in his beautiful room in the middle of abject poverty, he goes over the moral crisis that's been plaguing him, and which is probably the cause of his psychosomatic illness: He cares that there are people in the world suffering appalling conditions, and wishes that they didn't have to. But his own way of life - even the most basic elements of it like knowing he can make himself a coffee first thing in the morning - is only possible in a world where there are people much worse off than him. Wallace Shawn's
The Fever is the second in the Almeida's season on money; as
the first play in the season is still playing at the theatre itself, Robert Icke's production has been located as near as possible to the real thing, in the Amber Suite in the luxury May Fair Hotel off Piccadilly.
