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
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
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 s