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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Opening Night

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Series looking at the best in theatre, playwriting and live performance across the UK.

Broadcast from a new town or city each month, Opening Night gives listeners a backstage pass to the best in theatre, playwriting and live performance across the UK.

Opening Night: 04/11/2017

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04/11/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Opening Night, 04/11/2017

Poet and dramatist Michael Symmons Roberts asks who and what theatre is for.

Poet and dramatist Michael Symmons Roberts goes behind the scenes at Manchester's theatres to ask who and what theatre is for.

Manchester is culturally more confident than it's ever been and theatre has always been one of its great strengths. But is regional theatre bound by its geographical limits, or is its success crucially linked to a sense of local identity? 

Poet and dramatist, Michael Symmons Roberts, takes us behind the scenes at Manchester's £25 million arts centre, HOME, and its latest production Uncle Vanya to ask what is theatre for? Michael meets Walter Meierjohann as he works with the cast in rehearsal, to examine what a 100 year old classic play can say to a modern audience. From there Michael goes to Hope Mill Theatre, an independent venue producing critically acclaimed musicals. He also talks to Richard Gregory one of the creative minds behind Quarantine Theatre company, and he's joined by the playwright Simon Stephens, actor Julie Hesmondhalgh and Kevin Bourke, a theatre critic and chair of the Manchester Theatre Awards, to discuss the notion of 'regional' to distinguish between theatres in London, and playhouses outside it. 



Producer: Cecile Wright.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Opening Night

04/11/2017

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