Episode 4: David Edgar

In this episode of Through Rose Tinted Specs, Chris chats with esteemed playwright David Edgar. With a career spanning 40 years, David holds the privilege of being the most premiered playwright by the Royal Shakespeare Company. His 1980 adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby with the RSC later transferred to Broadway where he won the Tony Award for Best Play. Since then he has won several other awards, and he and Chris recently worked together on David’s play Trying It On, an autobiographical solo show looking back on his life.
 
Topics include: how lockdown has affected David creatively; his role as an activist for the freelance community within the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain; the challenges lockdown has presented to our lives and how it may affect playwrights going forward; what David thinks the future of the theatre industry could look like; the arguments surrounding physical theatre institutions and their levels of accessibility;  addressing the imbalances in theatre regarding women, ethnic minorities and financial barriers; Shakespeare setting a high bar for writing during a pandemic; who and what we can look to as models for the future; how we can find inspiration in the persistence of creatives during some of the toughest struggles.