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Front Row: Dave Johns on I, Daniel Blake; the Liverpool Biennial; why Dario Fo's plays speak to this moment?

Dave Johns on I, Daniel Blake; the Liverpool Biennial; why Dario Fo's plays speak to this moment?

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Dave Johns on I, Daniel Blake; the Liverpool Biennial; why Dario Fo's plays speak to this moment?

Dave Johns on I, Daniel Blake, the Liverpool Biennial and Dario Fo's work having a moment.

Laura Robertson reviews The Liverpool Biennial, which opens this weekend. Why political farceur Dario Fo's plays speak today. Dave Johns on adapting I, Daniel Blake for the stage.

The Liverpool Biennial, the UK’s largest contemporary visual arts festival, begins this weekend. Arts journalist Laura Robertson reviews, and the curator of the biennial, Khanyisile Mbongwa, discuss coming up with this year’s  theme – uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost things – which reflects on Liverpool’s history as a slave port but also provides a sense of hope and joy.

Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright Dario Fo was famous for plays that careered between farce and current affairs. He wrote his most successful plays during Italy’s years of economic crisis in the 1970s, and there’s been an upsurge in productions of them in the UK this year. Playwrights Deborah McAndrew and Tom Basden discuss their respective adaptations of They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! and Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

For Dave Johns, the lead role in Ken Loach’s multi-award winning film, I, Daniel Blake, marked his debut as a film actor. His performance as a man trapped and impoverished in the Catch-22 of the benefits system was admired by many. Now Dave has adapted the film for the stage. It opened at Northern Stage in Newcastle and begins a nationwide tour next week. He talks to Nick Ahad retelling the story of the film in a new way.

Presenter: Nick Ahad
Presenter: Ekene Akalawu

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Dave Johns on I, Daniel Blake; the Liverpool Biennial; why Dario Fo's plays speak to this moment?

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