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 you've framed it beautifully. it is toxic, but most importantly, it's disingenuous. in my humble opinion. it's 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 i'm 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 you've just outlined — race, immigration — they are central to your work, because they're 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 it's framed brilliantly. fortunately for me, or unfortunately, when i'm afraid of something, i have to run towards it. stephen chuckles i don't call that a virtue, 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, but it has to be fair and almost democratic. kwame, you call yourself... i know. ..and of course you are kwame. but you were, as a kid, raised as ian — ian roberts — in west london, in southall — a racially, ethnically very mixed part of london, which at the time, in the �*70s and �*80s, was the scene of racist violence... yes. ..of real racial tension. yes. to what extent has that shaped you? very much so. it hasn't defined me, i hope, but it has shaped me. i remember my father taking me to the tip of our street at the time — i think it was in 1979 — and a pub called the hamborough tavern was aflame. and it was because the skinheads, or a skinhead group, had performed and then they had attacked the black and brown people close to it. and as my father took me to the top of the street and as i saw the pub burning — and i would have been about 12 — he said, "this is your country, remember that." and i watched the police chase us down the street that i lived. and i saw skinheads armed with truncheons and shields. i didn't read this — i saw this. that completely and utterly shaped the way that i saw the world. you said earlier that when you are frightened, you tend to run to what frightens you rather than away from it. did you run toward trouble in those days? no. did you fight back? 0h. i mean, it depends on how you define fighting, right? i've never been a really physically strong guy. so the physicalfight was not my thing. did i have to run rather quickly when white skinhead culture at the time threatened the lives of everyone that i knew? yes. did i have to be able to defend myself to some degree? yes. but i think what happened to me, and this was kind of shaped by my mother, is that she wanted me to be a lawyerfor socialjustice. of course, we didn't call it that then, but she wanted me to be able to fight for the community from which i came from. and when i discovered that my way of fighting was art and that my way of fighting was thinking, i went into deep training. interesting that you say you wanted to fight for your community. one thing you did, in a way, was, by changing your name, identify with a community that was your ancestral community back in ghana, rather than your immediate sort of family connection, which was to grenada in what was then the british caribbean. yes. why did you do that? was it fuelled by an anger in a way, an anger at all that you knew your ancestors had suffered and a determination to be seen to reclaim that history? yes and no. i like to frame it that i did it for me, that i did it for my children. my parents travelled 4,000 miles to raise me in the first world, to have the benefits of the first world. and i wanted to do the same for my children. i didn't want my children to inherit the name of someone who once owned someone in their family. and yet it was your parents�* name. yeah. did it sadden them? yes, of course it did. but my mother understood. in particular, my mother understood, because at 12 she was there when i was watching roots and i saw kunta kinte being whipped until he would call himself toby. and i said, "mum, i'm going to trace our ancestry "and i'm going to take us back to the tribe that we came from." and so in a way, when i did it, maybe ten years later, my mother could at least root it in a truth as opposed to a kind of newfangled politic. hmm. and you say that you rejected your mum's advice to enter the law and become a sort of civil rights, human rights lawyer. you thought you could best represent your community by going into the arts, by going into the theatre. yes. but i would guess that, back in the �*80s and �*90s, when you were trying to make your name, it was kind of tough to be a young black man trying to persuade theatres notjust to hire you as an actor, but also a director as well. yeah, it was. i like to describe britain as being a colder land than it is now, but i was still standing on the shoulders of giants. there were actors of a previous generation to me who had kind of broken through. norman beaton, for example, was on tv very often, and in theatre, people were working. they were not being given the chances or the opportunities that i or many others receive today. but, you know, if you'd have asked me at 25, did i think i'd ever be the artistic director of the young vic, did i even think it was even possible? i would have said absolutely not, because i didn't see anybody in that arena. were you told that...? and i know you've talked about it and it's somewhat difficult to talk about, but you were told that you didn't look right, that you were kind of too black in a way, that your voice wasn't right? all sorts of reasons why you would never make it in the theatre. yes. yeah. and, you know... does that still make you angry today? no. why? well, because... it's outrageous. yeah, it is outrageous. but i was taught to hate the sin and not the sinner. that it felt really important... that sounds very zen and very sort of detached and at peace with life, but can you really, honestly say that, deep down, there isn't still a burning rage at things you have experienced? i think that when i... once i traced my ancestry and once i gave myself a name that was not of someone who once owned me, ifound a peace, an inner peace, that said, "what is myjob? "myjob now is to make sure that i reap the benefits of a land that once enslaved me, of a country that still, to some degree, discriminates against me and those who look like me. so what do i do? do i carry that anger? do i hold that in my heart? thatjust makes you heavier. what i try to do is pour that into my art and try and find avenues by which to make others look at themselves. that's what theatre is. theatre is the most magnificent mirror. you put it up to people and you say, "look at yourself. "i'm not going to tell you about yourself, "i'm just going to reflect you." mmm. and if, by chance, you see something that you don't like, then it's up to you to change it. there was a time when it looked like you were really going to make your name in the united states — because you broke a really quite a dramatic glass ceiling in the us by becoming the first black director, artistic director, of a big us theatre. it was the theatre in baltimore, maryland. yes. you were there for quite a number of years. you talked about the joy you experienced when you arrived to a barack 0bama presidency, a feeling that america was really moving to perhaps a post—racial moment, as some put it. it didn't quite work out that way, did it? no, and i don't think i ever believed it was going to be post—racial. what i thought was that i was living in a country that actually allowed someone, unlike our country at the time, that allowed someone to negotiate the vagaries of racism, the vagaries of oppression. and that was really powerful and invigorating. you felt there was more? because other actors have talked about this — david harewood, for one, a very distinguished black british actor, who's described how he found it easier to work in the united states. and i'm just interested, now that you've reflected on both the culture in the us and the uk, whether you really feel that there is more opportunity, less entrenched sort of assumptions about who you are in the united states. yes and no. without a shadow of a doubt, there's more opportunity. that's numerics, that's demographics, and it's also the enterprise culture that is the united states. and i found myself very comfortable in the united states. i like to create and i like to have ideas and i like to try and execute on those ideas. and so the culture of the united states says if the idea is good enough, i'm going to run at it. and sometimes i find in our country that it's notjust about the quality of the idea, it's about who you're connected to. and yet — i'm going to add an "and yet" — and yet during your time there, we saw the beginnings of the black lives matter movement, we saw the killing of a whole sort of series of young, black, unarmed men by the police in the united states in various different circumstances. we saw barack 0bama succeeded by donald trump and the rise of a very white conservative movement addressing social issues, particularly in schools and universities, in a way which many black americans found to be deeply worrying, deeply racist. so, conclusion, for you — is america a more difficult place for you, for a black man, to thrive now, than the united kingdom? again, the question is framed brilliantly, and i think that each land has its own travails. in britain, we're magnificent at the microaggression, we're magnificent at the kind of slight avoidance that race isn't as bad here as it is in the united states. and, yes, it is. yes, it is? yes, it is. absolutely. we just have to look at the statistics around the prison population, around mental health, around housing or on unemployment. we just have to look at the disproportionate number of young black men under 25 who are unemployed. we can see structural inequality in exactly the same way as in the us. although i'm going to quote to you the words of tomiwa 0wolade, a young, talented black british writer who's just written a book, this is not america: why black lives matter in britain, where the argument is precisely that we shouldn't transport assumptions about the entrenched, racist post—slavery systems in the united states and think they translate to the uk. the uk, he says, is fundamentally different. and what i love is that we're living in a time where there can be diverse thoughts within the black community. i happen to fundamentally disagree with that. i think it's flawed in its analysis. but i'm overjoyed that he's able to find an audience for that kind of propagation. so when he says, for example, that critical race theory, which is taught on campuses in the united states... which on the whole most people actually didn't know about until the right started talking about it. right, but his argument is that it doesn't really have a place in the culture, the university culture or otherwise in culture in the united kingdom, because we didn't have slavery, at least not on our home shores, we didn't have official segregation as they did in the united states, and that burdening, for example, young people in the united kingdom with notions of white privilege, of white guilt is a mistake. again, i have to respectfully say that i fundamentally disagree with that. we had a colour bar in this country, and that's why we had things set up like the racial equality units that were set up from the �*70s and the �*80s. we absolutely have that. there is very little difference, in my humble opinion. and just because we didn't have slavery in this country — which, actually, technically isn't true, because that was up to a certain date — it doesn't mean that certainly up until recently that the overwhelming majority of black people in this country were descendants of those who were enslaved. and just because it happened offshore in the gardens of europe doesn't mean that notions of superiority were not exported from those gardens of enterprise back into the motherland. and i've experienced it in my own life. as you referenced right at the beginning, when i was at school — a private school, by the way — my head teacher said to me, "black people cannot speak english "properly, because your jaws are structured "in a way that doesn't allow proper pronunciation." i was 11 years old, and if you say that to an 11—year—old, you are burying inferiority into their minds and you are asserting your superiority. that is exactly the same thing that critical race theory is trying to frame. so, again, i say i respectfully disagree with the analysis. and yet, having just seen beneatha's place, this revival of a play you wrote actually a decade ago, which is on at the young vic at the moment here in london, you also clearly have some scepticism, some doubts about elements of the ultra—progressive, some would say "woke", mindset that we see in some liberal circles on campuses, both in the united states and the united kingdom. you create this imagined debate about african—american studies on campus. and you wrestle with the notion that white professors are now dominant in this department. you're kind of mocking it. you're almost mocking an ultra—woke agenda. well, i slightly rebuke the term "woke", and my generation was slightly before the woke generation. we used to call ourselves conscious, which literally means the same thing. that's been hijacked by the culture wars. and as far as i'm concerned, myjob as a playwright is to look at everything in totality and then pour it into the pot and put some flames on it. and what i would say is that we progressives — and i define myself as a progressive — sometimes we forget that there is a need for conservatism. conservatism sometimes is just a really good braking mechanism so that human beings can adjust to change. and i think that's what i feel as kwame, and it's certainly what i put in the play, that there are conservative notions that we should pay attention to or we progressives or the next generation will pay the cost, ie a donald trump after a barack 0bama. what does being a progressive mean in terms of running a theatre? does it mean you believe in race quotas, in race equality across casting, you know, whatever the play, whatever the actual subject matter, that you insist on 50—50 casting, for example? no. let me frame it this way. i describe myself as a black postmodernist. thatjust means that i can just do anything and everything and it doesn't matter. i don't define myself through my blackness. my blackness is just part of who i am. so as a leader, i believe that a theatre space is there to be the hub of a community. and a community in london is as diverse as it gets. so it means i want my theatre, from my staff to who's on my stage to who directs to who writes, i want it to reflect the london of now, the britain of now and possibly... right, but this isn'tjust about kwame kwei—armah, is it? it's about systems and it's about equality across the piece. so, i've spoken in the past to greg doran at the rsc, i've spoken to actors like rupert everett. rupert everett has a strong feeling that we are getting far too hung up on this sort of notion of authenticity and lived experience when it comes to casting, ie you don't have to be gay to play the part of a gay person onstage. i wonder whether you share that feeling or whether you think authenticity requires that sort of thing. i think it depends on the play, it depends on the artist and it depends on the audience. as far as i'm concerned, when you walk into a theatre, you hang your literal boots up at the door, which for me means that most people should have access to most things. there are protected characteristics in which, if i'm going to cast a white actor to play a black character as written, i will think about the history of discrimination, i will think about how my audience might respond to it and if, ultimately, it will serve the play. in a similar way, if i had a black actor in a part that might be traditionally from another culture and if it gets in the way of the play, then i won't do it. i'm there to serve the art. but what i also have to do is understand that audiences want to incrementally be brought forward. they don't want to sit where they were. they come into spaces like the young vic in order to say, "challenge me, take me to that next place." have you changed the profile of the audience at the young vic? because traditionally theatre in london is dominated by white, middle—class people. have you changed that? i don't know that i've changed it. i inherited a diverse audience. it was one of the reasons why i wanted to lead the young vic. and i would say that we have augmented that. i'm really proud, actually, of my staff. when i walked in the door, actually, it is not as diverse as it looks today. i walked in and i said to all of my senior managers, "i want people in here who look like my mother, who are making decisions. "i want people that look like my cousins." and i would say if you walked into my administrative bay now, you would see that. so have we made structural changes? absolutely. have we demanded it via quotas? absolutely not. we have demanded it by seeking excellence. do you think the theatre has much of a future? yeah! well, look around you. look at the way in which so many talented actors and directors seem to be drawn to streaming platforms, to the money and the resources and the potential that is offered by something that, frankly, threatens the future of the theatre. stephen, it's a brilliant question, because, in truth, it's quite hard. i mean, there's a strike happening right now, but it's quite hard to get writers for the theatre who are of a certain level, purely because theatre pays very little and tv pays a lot! and similarly, for actors... you've dallied with tv and film yourself. i write tv and film right now. but the truth of the matter is this is an art form that has existed from ancient egypt right up to today. i do not believe that the challenge of streaming or the challenge of another technology will get in the way of the human being staring at another human being telling a facet of their story. 0urjob — which is why i really appreciate the question — ourjob is to understand where our audience is and to reach and find them and speak to them in a way that says it's worth leaving your house to come and see a reflection of yourself in 3d. we have to reach through all of the barriers and make ourselves continually valid. we have to end there. but, kwame kwei—armah, it's been a pleasure. thank you for being on hardtalk. an absolute pleasure. thank you so much, stephen. hello there. wednesday's weather did not look or feel particularly summer—like across large swathes of the uk, thanks to an area of low pressure, this swirl of cloud on the satellite picture. this was named storm patricia by the french weather service because of impacts it had in france, but particularly on the southern flank of that storm system, we've had some very strong winds. there have been some really heavy downpours, but that area of low pressure is now rolling away eastwards. in its wake, though, we're going to be left with a brisk northerly wind, which will make it feel decidedly cool over the next couple of days. that cool breeze a big feature of thursday's weather, a mix of sunny spells and showers. some quite large areas of cloud, particularly across northern parts of scotland, where we will see some bits and pieces of rain. but for southern scotland, northern ireland, england and wales, it's a mixed bag — some spells of sunshine, some showers, some of which will be heavy and thundery. but there will be places that avoid the showers and stayjust about dry. temperatures ranging from 14 degrees in stornoway to 22 in london. and then as we head through thursday night, we will continue to see some of these showers. some clear spells here and there. i think out west, it will be mostly dry by the end of the night. temperatures typically holding up at between 11 and 14 degrees. so we head into friday, still feeling the effects of that northerly breeze. some spells of sunshine, some showers too. this time, those showers mostly across central and eastern parts of england. the odd heavy, thundery one. elsewhere, more in the way of dry weather, although we will see cloud filling the sky across northern ireland later in the day ahead of this next weather system. and temperatures 16 to 20 degrees at best. and then let me show you what happens on saturday, because this area of low pressure is going to push its way in from the atlantic, the fourth weekend in a row dominated by low pressure. this one quite a deep affair. a bout of heavy rain, could well be some thunder and some lightning mixing in. northern scotland likely to avoid it, but some wet weather elsewhere and the potential for gales, particularly around some western coasts. and with the cloud, the rain, the strength of the wind, temperatures really will struggle — 14 to 18 degrees. we would expect temperatures higher than that at this point in early august. but as we look further ahead into the middle part of next week, there are some signs that things could turn a bit drier and warmer. welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm monica miller. the headlines. donald trump is due in court on thrusday after he was indicted on four charges relating to alleged attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. the fallout of the military coup in niger continues — the world bank has now stopped all disbursements until further notice. a gunman who killed 11 people at a synagogue in pittsburgh in 2018 — is sentenced to death. we have a special report from a town in northern india which has been hit by religious violence. and typhoon khanun hits the 0kinawa islands injapan. we speak to a storm chaser. it's seven in the morning in singapore, and seven pm in washington, dc — where former president donald trump is due in court later on thursday. it follows his indictment on four charges relating to alleged attempts to overturn his presidential election defeat in 2020. his campaign team has described the allegations as a witch hunt. 0ur north america editor sarah smith reports. die—hard trump supporters were anything but distraught as they learnt of the latest charges against him. these people do believe he's being unfairly persecuted, but also that he can beat the rap.

Related Keywords

Kwame Kwei Armah , Playwright , Artists , Young Vic Theatre , Metaphor , London , Warfare , Guest , Warriors , Times , Actor , Part , Writer , Pleasure , Director , Hardtalk , Theatre Business , Three , Some , Ijust , Culture Wars , Culture War , Phrase , Cliche , Kind , Opinion , Fear , Ourjob , Create Political Fear , Politicians , Binaries , Farce , Issues , Race , Immigration , Work , Life Story , History , Hearts , Populist , Class , Battering Ram , One , Something , Territory , Play , Place , Ie You Don T Have , Fact , Virtue , Stephen Chuckles , Shadow Of A Doubt , Beneatha , Artist , To Catalyse , Statements , Debates , Nothing , Catalyse , Left , Right , People , Agenda , Counsel , Fearfrom , Two , Art , Point , Writing , Tool , Provocateur , World , Debate , Bit , Change , Difference , Inequality , Justice , Point Of View , Someone , Order , Myjob , Character , Plays , Any , Viewpoints , Position , Yes , Land , Validity , Views , Saying , Course , Kid , Racist Violence , Scene , Racially , West London , Southall , 80 , 70 , Street , It Hasn T , Father , Extent , Pub , Tension , Tip , 1979 , Skinheads , Skinhead Group , Top , Hamborough Tavern , Country , Police , Pub Burning , 12 , Way , Truncheons , Trouble , 0h , 0 , Thing , Degree , Fighting , Lives , Skinhead Culture , Everyone , Physicalfight , Guy , Mother , Lawyerfor Socialjustice , Community , Thinking , Deep Training , Name , Sort , Community Back , Family Connection , Ghana , Grenada , Anger , Ancestors , Determination , British , Caribbean , Children , Parents , 4000 , Benefits , Same , Family , Kunta Kinte , Roots , Toby , It , Truth , Us , Ancestry , Mum , Tribe , Newfangled Politic , Ten , Big Us Theatre , Advice , Rights , Human Rights Lawyer , Law , Arts , 90 , Britain , Black Man , Theatres , Tough , Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants , Tv , Example , Actors , Generation , Norman Beaton , Others , Chances , Opportunities , 25 , Artistic Director , Anybody , Arena , Reasons , Sorts , Voice , Wasn , Things , Peace , Isn T , Life , Sin , Sinner , Rage , Deep Down , Ifound , Mirror , Heart , Thatjust , Chance , Glass Ceiling , Feeling , Presidency , Number , Barack 0bama , Joy , Maryland , Baltimore , It Didn T , Vagaries , Racism , Oppression , Invigorating , Culture , Black British , David Harewood , Opportunity , Assumptions , Numerics , Ideas , Enterprise Culture , Demographics , Idea , Enough , Notjust , Beginnings , Quality , Ie A Donald Trump , Movement , Men , Young , Black , Circumstances , Series , Killing , Rise , Black Americans , Schools , Universities , Conclusion , Question , Travails , Microaggression , Avoidance , Statistics , Prison Population , Housing , Mental Health , Unemployment , Words , Talented Black British , Tomiwa 0wolade , This Is Not America Why Black Lives Matter , Argument , Systems , We Shouldn T , Book , Entrenched , Analysis , Thoughts , Audience , Race Theory , Campuses , Propagation , Slavery , Doesn T , University Culture , Notions , Mistake , White Privilege , Burdening , Shores , Home , Segregation , White Guilt , Units , Equality , Colour Bar , Technically Isn T True , Which , Majority , Descendants , Gardens , Superiority , Europe Doesn T , Enterprise , Enslaved , Motherland , Private School , Beginning , Jaws , Head Teacher , English , Doesn T Allow Proper Pronunciation , Minds , Inferiority , 11 , Revival , Doubts , Elements , Ultra Progressive , Scepticism , Mindset , Circles , African American Studies On Campus , Notion , Term , Professors , Department , Everything , Progressives , Totality , Flames , Pot , Conservatism , Human Beings , Braking Mechanism , Need , Casting , Attention , Mean , Race Equality , Terms , Race Quotas , Cost , Whatever , Subject Matter , 50 , Anything , Blackness , Theatre Space , Postmodernist , Hub , Leader , Doesn T Matter , Staff , Stage , Now , Piece , Rupert Everett , Rsc , Greg Doran , Authenticity , Person , Gay , Boots , Door , Characteristics , Discrimination , Audiences , Spaces , Profile , White , Wall , Changes , Managers , Cousins , Bay , Making Decisions , Directors , Quotas , Excellence , Potential , Resources , Platforms , Money , Writers , Strike , Stephen , Lot , Level , Challenge , Art Form , Matter , Similarly , Film , Ancient Egypt , Human Being , Story , Streaming , Technology , 0urjob Which , Question Ourjob , Facet , House , Reflection , Barriers , 3 , Area , Weather , Pressure , Cloud , Storm System , Thanks , Swathes , Swirl , Satellite Picture , Flank , Impacts , Wednesday , Storm Patricia , France , French , Spells , Showers , Wind , Winds , Away Eastwards , Cool Breeze , Downpours , Wake , Mix , Big Feature Of Thursday , England , Sunshine , Areas , Parts , Places , Rain , Thundery , Pieces , Bits , Bag , Northern Ireland , Southern Scotland , Wales , Temperatures , The End , 22 , 14 , Breeze , Effects , Elsewhere , Thundery One , Weather System , Odd Heavy , Sky , 20 , 16 , Thunder , Bout , Row , Affair , Lightning Mixing , Heavy Rain , Northern Scotland , Atlantic , The Cloud , Coasts , Gales , The Rain , 18 , Reporting , Headlines , Singapore , Monica Miller , Newsday , Court On Thrusday , Charges , Attempts , Election , Notice , Fallout , Military Coup , Result , Disbursements , Niger , World Bank , 2020 , Four , Gunman , Special Report , Violence , Death , Synagogue , Town , Hit , Northern India , Pittsburgh , 2018 , Storm Chaser , 0kinawa Islands Injapan , Typhoon Khanun , Seven , Court , Indictment , Defeat , Campaign Team , Allegations , Former , Washington Dc , Witch Hunt , Sarah Smith , Die Hard , Supporters , 0ur , Rap ,