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

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

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