Beastly disease caught by popular playwright (5)
I believe the answer is:
ibsen
'playwright' is the definition.
(Ibsen is an example)
'beastly disease caught by popular' is the wordplay.
'beastly disease' becomes 'bse' (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, mad cow disease. I am not sure about the 'beastly' bit.**).
'caught by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'popular' becomes 'in'.
'bse' going within 'in' is 'IBSEN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ibsen that I've seen before include "'Ghosts' writer" , "Hedda Gabler author" , "Norwegian dramatist of 'Hedda Gabler'" , "Norwegian dramatist, Henrik (1828-1906)" , "Author of The Master Builder, d. 1906" .)