Description:

First commissioned by the Film Fund nearly five years ago, this long-awaited script is at last made available. It amplifies a little-known incident in the career of the Beast 666. In 1938, Greta Selleira, a wealthy, attractive heiress, visits the secluded but beautiful valley of Lamorna to continue her long-standing affair with the painter, Lawrence Beech. But another man is in love with her, the poet and magician, Aleister Crowley, whose young mistress also lives near Lamorna. Crowley fascinates and provokes the locals, tries to win Greta over to his well-centred philosophy, harasses and terrifies the poet, Dylan Thomas, and takes up painting. But as these many intrigues are taking place, the shadow of war spreads its stain and gradually it becomes apparent that the small, cut-off community of Lamorna is a doomed Edwardian paradise whose values and way of life are about to be swept away.