Persuasive rather than polarising . Kwame kwei armah, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you so much for having me. It is a great pleasure to have you. Now, youve been in the Theatre Business as an actor, a writer and a director for the best part of three decades. Ijust used that phrase, some would call it a cliche, about the culture wars. Does it feel to you that today there is a somewhat toxic culture war . I think youve framed it beautifully. It is toxic, but most importantly, its disingenuous. In my humble opinion. Its used to kind of create political fear. And ourjob as artists is, i think, fundamentally to take away that fear, to take away the binaries that i think this farce of the culture wars are. You know, i often hear politicians and im not one to diss politicians, but i also often hear politicians use race or class or immigration or use history as a Battering Ram to get themselves into the hearts of the populist. But those issues youve just outlined race, immigration they are centr
Hardtalk. Kwame kweiarmah, welcome to hardtalk. , ~ , c, kwame kweiarmah, welcome to hardtalk. , ~ a kwame kweiarmah, welcome to hardtalk. , a c, hardtalk. Thank you so much for havin hardtalk. Thank you so much for having me hardtalk. Thank you so much for having me it hardtalk. Thank you so much for having me. It is hardtalk. Thank you so much for having me. It is a hardtalk. Thank you so much for having me. It is a great having me. It is a Great Pleasure having me. It is a Great Pleasure to having me. It is a Great Pleasure to have having me. It is a Great Pleasure to have you. | having me. It is a great i pleasure to have you. You having me. It is a Great Pleasure to have you. You have beenin pleasure to have you. You have been in the Theatre Business as an actor, writer and director for best part of three decades. Ijust for best part of three decades. I just used that for best part of three decades. Ijust used that phrase, some would use and call it a cliche about the culture wars
Ijust used that phrase, some would call it a cliche, about the culture wars. Does it feel to you that today there is a somewhat toxic culture war . I think youve framed it beautifully. It is toxic, but most importantly, its disingenuous. In my humble opinion. Its used to kind of create political fear. And ourjob as artists is, i think, fundamentally to take away that fear, to take away the binaries that i think this farce of the culture wars are. You know, i often hear politicians and im not one to diss politicians, but i also often hear politicians use race or class or immigration or use history as a Battering Ram to get themselves into the hearts of the populist. But those issues youve just outlined race, immigration they are central to your work, because theyre central to your own life story. Yeah, totally and utterly. But. And have you been frightened off entering this territory at times . Again, i think its framed brilliantly. Fortunately for me, or unfortunately, when im afraid o
but it is fact for me. without a shadow of a doubt, even producing the play that s on at the young vic now, beneatha s place, i was worried for a while. i was worried that those of the right or even those of the left might come after me for some of the statements or some of the debates that the play wishes to catalyse. but i m an artist. we re here to do nothing but catalyse. i can t run in fearfrom people trying to counsel you or use. ..use your work as an agenda for theirs. i want to talk more about beneatha s place, because i was lucky enough to see it just a night or two ago. so i do want to talk about it and the issues it raises. but before we get to that, just a more general point about your writing, because you ve been at it for a long time. yeah. do you see yourself as something of a provocateur? i describe myself as a political playwright, that art is my tool for change incremental change. all you can do as an artist
is catalyse the debate. and i don t see the point of me using my art if it s not to incrementally try and make the world just a little bit better. yeah, but there s a difference between catalysing a debate and putting across a very clear point of view. do you have a clear point of view on some of these issues that you just outlined, like race, justice, immigration, inequality? i absolutely do. i think as a playwright, however, myjob is to love every character that i put in any of my plays. and in order to create something dramatic, i have to make sure that all viewpoints are covered. and so whether someone sits in the far right, which is a different position to me, i still have to understand what it is i think they are saying, or what i think the land that they stand upon, what validity does it have? so, yes, kwame does have sorry to speak about himself in the third person does have his own political views. as a playwright, i have a point that i wish to catalyse,