Hello, everyone, and welcome to Speaking with Joy, a podcast to fill your soul, challenge your mind, and make you brave.

I'm your host, Joy Clarkson, and an evangelist for all things good, true, and beautiful.

So make yourself a cup of tea, find somewhere comfortable, and let's dive in to this week's episode. How do you get to say what you don't know,

you know? Is that why people write poems and things? But I don't know how she knew, how she heard.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to speaking with joy.

Today, I have the great pleasure of talking about a selection of plays with Dr. Rowan

Williams, who, of course, many of you will have known and already admired.

He is a theologian, a poet, and as we shall learn today, a playwright, and also the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Today, we are going to discuss tree plays that he's recently released with slant books called Shake Shaft and Other Plays.

And we will talk about the role of arts and helping us discover what is true, but we don't know how to say and the role of words

and how they fail us and succeed for us. And I couldn't be more delighted or honored to welcome

Dr. Rowan Williams onto the show.

Thank you very much indeed, Joy. It's a real privilege to be with you.

So I was so delighted when I saw you releasing this collection of plays. I think people know you

for many things. They know you as a theologian and even as a poet. But I don't think prior to now you had published a collection of plays. Is that right?

That's right. Yes, I came to this late. I suppose about 15 years ago when I started working on the Shake Shafft play.

Did you have a history with theatre in your past? Confession time. Yes, I did. Yes, when I was a schoolboy and a student, I did spend quite a bit of time doing drama.

And yes, one of my memories of being a graduate student is actually playing Thomas Moore in a man for all seasons, which was a tremendous joy.

Oh, that's so wonderful to know.

Yes, I know.

I spent quite a lot of time in my youth in plays.

Did you like the acting more, or did you do directing,

...