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Front Row: Wole Soyinka, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom

05/10/2021

Wole Soyinka, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Wole Soyinka, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom

Wole Soyinka on his new novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.

Wole Soyinka on his new novel, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom and Cathy Brady on British film.

Wole Soyinka, the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells Samira Ahmed about what impelled him to write his first new novel in five decades, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.

As theatres re-open across the UK and audiences return, are some theatre fans being left behind? We hear from Jamie Hale, an award-winning theatre director and playwright with a disability,  and Richard Misek from the University of Kent, who is investigating the impact of digital arts on audiences.

Film director Michael Winterbottom shares insights from his conversations with fellow filmmakers, from Ken Loach to Andrea Arnold and from Lynn Ramsay to Steve McQueen, about the challenges British directors face in getting independent British films made. Michael is joined by the debut feature filmmaker Cathy Brady to discuss what it takes to get a film on the big or small screen.

PRESENTER: Samira Ahmed
PRODUCER: Simon Richardson

Photo: Wole Soyinka Photo credit: Mr TAIWO OLUSOLA-JOHNSON (TOJ Concepts)

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