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Front Row: Backstairs Billy, Jonathan Escoffery, National Theatre Wales

Backstairs Billy, Jonathan Escoffery, National Theatre Wales

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Backstairs Billy, Jonathan Escoffery, National Theatre Wales

Backstairs Billy, Jonathan Escoffery, and National Theatre Wales.

What’s next for National Theatre Wales? As the company warns it may have to close after its funding was cut, Front Row looks at its long-term future.

Backstairs Billy is a new play about Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, and her loyal, camp and working class servant, William Tallon. Penelope Wilton, who plays the Queen Mother, and Luke Evans, who plays her Steward and Page, talk to Tom Sutcliffe about creating these characters.

Jonathan Escoffery has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel If I Survive You. Through a series of interlinked short stories it explores issues of race, masculinity and living in the United States as a second-generation Jamaican immigrant.  

The decision by the Arts Council of Wales to stop funding National Theatre Wales has made headlines in and outside Wales.  Executive Editor of Wales Art Review, Gary Raymond, and theatre director and producer, Yvonne Murphy, join Front Row to discuss the ramifications.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Julian May

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