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Front Row: David Hare, Sixto Rodriguez, Stage Kiss, Hamlet in N Korea

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14/03/2014

David Hare, Sixto Rodriguez, Stage Kiss, Hamlet in N Korea

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, David Hare, Sixto Rodriguez, Stage Kiss, Hamlet in N Korea

Dominic Dromgoole defends The Globe's decision to take Hamlet to North Korea.

David Hare on the Worricker Trilogy, Sixto Rodriguez on Searching for Sugar Man, the art of the stage kiss, and Dominic Dromgoole defends The Globe taking Hamlet to North Korea.

With John Wilson.

David Hare's 2011 TV film Page Eight starred Bill Nighy as idealistic MI5 officer Johnny Worricker. Now Hare has written and directed two follow up films, Turks and Caicos and Salting the Battlefield, beginning where the last film left off with Johnny on the run from the British government after stealing an incriminating document. Ralph Fiennes, Winona Ryder and Helena Bonham Carter co-star.

Folk musician Sixto Rodriguez released a couple of albums in the 1970s and then drifted into obscurity. Unbeknownst to him his music, and especially his song Sugarman, went on to become iconic in South Africa as anthems for the anti-apartheid struggle. The award-winning 2012 documentary Searching for Sugarman, which traced his revelatory trip to South Africa to meet his legion of fans, brought his music to global attention. Now 72 and touring the UK, Rodriguez discusses the impact of the rediscovery on his life since.

Stage Kiss is Sarah Ruhl's play examining the onstage and offstage ramifications of locking lips night after night in front of an audience. She discusses why the subject fascinated her, with contributions from Guildhall's Director of Drama Christian Burgess and actor Jimmy Akingbola.

After a week in which Amnesty International levied criticism at the Globe theatre for its decision to take a production to Hamlet to North Korea, John speaks to the theatre's Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole. They discuss the world tour of the play, whether cultural organisations have a moral responsibility as well as an artistic one, and whether the North Korean government have asked for any part of the play to be edited or censored.

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