Daily: Enter Stage Left – Playwright James Graham on drama, politics and presidential debates

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From 1970s Westminster, to the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? scandal, James Graham is one of the UK’s most successful playwrights today. As Best of Enemies opens at the Young Vic, he talks to Dorian Lynskey about dramatising the brutal Buckley vs. Vidal debates of the 1968 US presidential elections, how art engages audiences and tackles polarization, composing playlists in the pub after rehearsals …and why COVID-threatened theatres have to work even harder to “drag people” away from TV, Netflix and Disney Plus. “I feel a personal responsibility to the story to make it as meaningful and impactful as possible.” “I don't know what it's like to be in 1960s America, but I do know what it's like to get into an argument on live TV.” “Queer and Nazi weren't slurs politician had used before on US television.” “The most radical thing a playwright can do is celebrate the idea of empathy towards different points of view.” “I was surprised by the resistance from the progressive left to showing Dominic Cummings on TV.” “Democracy depends on theatre. The Greeks made sense of difficult things by putting people in a theatre and telling stories.” Presented by Dorian Lynskey. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
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0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker daily and happy Christmas I'm Dorianlinsky. My guest today is one of the UK's most
1:15.1	successful dramatists over the past decade on stage and on screen. He's become a master of
1:19.7	turning complicated political and culturaluations into Popular Entertainment.
1:23.7	He has written about 1970s Westminster in this house, the birth of Rupert Murdoch's son in Inc.
1:28.6	The Who Wants to be a Millionaire scandal in Quiz, the Labour Party in Labor of Love,
1:32.4	Welsh nationalism in an episode of The Crown and yet. scandal in Quiz, the Labour Party and Labour of Love,
1:32.8	Welsh nationalism in an episode of the Crown
1:34.7	and you know what in Brexit the uncivil war.
1:37.6	His latest play for the Young Vic
1:39.1	is the best of enemies, which is about the 1968 TV
	...

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