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I'm Mehmet Ergen.

My life and work as a theatre director has taken me from Istanbul to London and back again.

For the BBC World Service, this is a tale of two theatres.

He moves between two countries and two languages and two theatres.

Tonight after the show, I'm flying to Istanbul.

He goes London, he comes Turkey, he has a family, he has lots of things to do.

The protests began in taxing square in the centre of Istanbul.

They're just setting up the lights for tonight's show, which is taxing square,

about the protests in Gizi Park that took place last summer in Istanbul.

And first time when I read the text, I asked him, are you sure?

Because I don't want my artistic director at jail.

And he said, that's okay, we should do it.

You can't run a theatre and talk about things that doesn't concern society living in.

So I do it anyway. And we wait, see what happens. Come and take me.

I'm Susanna Klapp and I've been the theatre critic of the Observer since 1997.

I think of the Arcola and Mement as being an item.

I think of him being the engine within this machine.

My name's Tom Morris, I'm the artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic.

His gift to London Theatre is extraordinary.

Not only in terms of the people he's directly helped and enabled,

...