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Front Row: Lenny Henry, Posy Simmonds, When They See Us

28/05/2019

Lenny Henry, Posy Simmonds, When They See Us

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Lenny Henry, Posy Simmonds, When They See Us

Lenny Henry on his latest stage role in King Hedley II, and graphic artist Posy Simmonds

Lenny Henry returns to the stage in King Hedley II; graphic designer and comic artist Posy Simmonds; and a review of new Netflix drama series When They See Us

Lenny Henry discusses his latest role as Elmore in August Wilson’s play King Hedley II. King is a young black man, just out of prison, who dreams of starting a business and a family. Then the smooth-talking, crap-shooting hustler Elmore wanders in and changes the dynamic in the yard. Artistic director Nadia Fall tells Samira why she has brought this epic, set in Pittsburgh in the Reagan era, to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, and announces her plans for her second season there.

The celebrated comic artist and graphic novelist Posy Simmonds, famous for her satirical long-running comic strips Gemma Bovary and Tamara Drewe in The Guardian, and books including Cassandra Darke, discusses her first major UK retrospective covering a 50-year career.

The Central Park Five are the subject of a new true crime drama from Netflix. When They See Us centres on the wrongful conviction of five teenagers of colour for violent rape in New York in 1989 and their following 25-year fight to prove their innocence. The show is directed by Ava DuVernay who’s known for her critically acclaimed films Selma about Martin Luther King, and the documentary 13th, which considers the high percentage of African-Americans in US prisons. Dreda Say Mitchell reviews the drama.

And poet, performer and juggler Gruffudd Owen on being the new Welsh-language children's laureate.

Presenter Samira Ahmed
Producer Jerome Weatherald

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