and the crisis is entering its eighth week. police fired tear gas and rubber bullets during clashes around government buildings. the beijing authorities are expected to give their first official response to the unrest in a few hours. the jailed russian opposition leader, alexei navalny, may have been exposed to a chemical administered by someone else, according to his personal doctor. mr navalny was taken to hospital on sunday, reportedly suffering from an allergic reaction. and this story is trending on bbc.com: egan bernal has become the first colombian to win the tour de france. the 22 year—old is also the youngest winner in more than a hundred years. large numbers of his fellow colombians watched as bernal was crowned champion. that's all. stay with bbc world news. now on bbc news, in a special edition of hardtalk, sarah montague speaks to actor

and activist michael sheen. welcome to the bbc‘s radio theatre for a special edition of hardtalk. my guest today is known around the world for his film, television and theatre work. he made his name for his uncanny ability to portray other well—known people. tony blair, brian clough, david frost, roles that catapulted michael sheen into a life far from his home in port talbot, in south wales. but it was acting that also brought him back there, where he is now immersed in tackling some of the problems that face a poor community — poverty, debt and homelessness. so how does he straddle such contrasting worlds? michael sheen, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much.

applause so how does the hollywood star fit in on port talbot‘s high street? yeah, it's an interesting double life. inevitably there's a bit of that, that happens anyway. you know, when you start to feel like, "oh, this is my hometown, but i sort of feel like my belonging, my sense of belonging is split now," and that just kept extending. so at first it was having moved down to london to come to drama school here, and then starting to work as an actor. and then eventually that leading me to go and live in america for a while. and then, i suppose, and having some fame, and celebrity... that inevitably also can be a separating thing as well, regardless of the geographical space. and then, to the point where i am now where, yeah, it feels very much like straddling two worlds, where i suppose i am essentially trying to have two full—time careers.

and that is quite challenging. currently you've just finished a couple of american series, which, just put your name in and you'll see, good omens, the good fight, they are travelling very far and fast. i only do projects with the word "good" in them now. it's just a contractual thing. but your breakthrough role as i sort of mentioned was tony blair, which was back in the deal, and that was a breakthrough here, which was the deal, 2003, focusing on the blair—brown relationship and a deal they struck over the leadership. and yet, i was absolutely gobsmacked to see you say, particularly given your subsequent roles, "i can't do impersonations." no, i've never been... you know, i think people assume that i was a kid at school who did impersonations of the teachers but i was never any good at it. in fact, it was sort of a joke that i was terrible at that kind of thing. but you wouldn't say that now? well, i sort of slightly balk when the word "impersonation" comes

up because that's not really in any way what i'm trying to do. in a way it's the opposite. i don't want people to be worried about the surface although that is part of the challenge, and i think that's why i party like playing those sort of roles. because you — inevitably if you walk on to a stage or in front of a camera and you say, "i'm playing david frost" or whoever, someone you know the audience is very familiar with, you can't shirk that. you have to somehow meet that because that's the expectation, but the work i think, is always to try and make sure that very, very quickly, the audience is comfortable with you, accepts that you are playing that person that they are very familiar with, and then just let go of that goes on the journey with you. and you enjoy the fear of that a bit, don't you? i enjoy the challenge of that, the fear or the challenge of playing someone very familiar is quite different for a camera than it is on stage. so when i was playing frost on stage, just walking out from behind the wings and coming in front of a live audience,

and saying, "hello, good evening and welcome" or whatever, was like, i realised that i'm — i sort of realised i'm a theatre animal in that sense. i like being in the room with you, and being able to kind of smell you... and then to dominate you. that's what i like. whereas on camera you can't do it. it's very different, they are just out there somewhere and it's a very different beast. but i've only done it once on stage, which is frost. 0k, and you haven't done theatre in a while, so it's quite interesting, this sort of environment, i suppose. yes, i'm very aware of you. i want to get in amongst you. tony blair, did he — did you ever meet him afterwards? did he ever comment on what you made of him? yes, well, i played him three times. there was the deal, the one that you mentioned, which was actually the first time i ever played a real person, in that sense. although i played mozart before, but no—one really knows what he sounds like, so you can kind of get away with that. so that was the first time i'd ever

played a real person and that was — i mean, it was terrifying. what did he say about it though? um, i was at a dinner or something in new york and at the time, wendy murdoch was there and she came up to me and said, "i'm having a dinnerfor tony soon, would you like to come?" and i thought, well, i've played him twice now. you know, it would be interesting to see how he moves through a room and that kind of stuff. so i thought yeah, alright. and then, of course, i realised, hang on, that means... "where is this dinner?" "oh, it's our place in la." i ended up going to rupert murdoch's house which was on the top — well, it still is, presumably — on the top of one of the hollywood hills. just this... it was like a bond villain‘s lair. i mean, it really was. it was just up on the top of a hill, looking out across all of la. and i get there, and i get out

of the car, and there are people, snipers up on the roof and stuff, and it was like walking onto the death star. and i go in and wendy comes out and immediately ushers me straight through, out to this sort of area where people were milling around and suddenly i'm standing in front of tony blair and she is saying, "tony, look, it's you!" and the two of us are just standing there, kind of looking at each other, not quite knowing what to do. and then people said, "so tony, what do you think of michael's performances?" and he said, "um, i've never seen them. never seen them." seriously? yeah, and then people went away and then he talked to me in detail about scenes within each little thing. so, you know. 0k. now, the second time you played him was in the queen, which is of course the queen played by helen mirren, and you have been refreshingly honest because this was sort of your breakthrough international role about the reaction to her, and the other more

subdued reaction to you. yeah, so i sort of started, i would say to peter morgan, who wrote it, i said, "look, you keep writing these things that's about two people. and the other one is always more interesting. why do i always play the boring one?" and i've always thought, well, certainly at that time the things that he was writing about often were about — and i don't mean this in a pejorative way — it was the monster at the heart of the labyrinth and then there's the hero who goes looking for it, you know? and the audience find their way through with the hero, but it's the monster that's interesting. it's the monster that's fascinating, and in the queen, the monster is the queen. in frost/nixon, the monster is nixon, and that'sjust the way it was. now, across all your roles, millions of people will have seen you, but it was something that presumably only a few thousand people saw, that you described as "undoubtedly the most significant thing in my career but also the most significant thing in my life, probably. "

and this was, of all things, it's quite hard to explain but it was, the passion play in port talbot. it's interesting because, not even quite sure what it was called... that gives a sense of the extraordinariness of the event, so for anyone that doesn't know, in 2011, i created and was part creator of a production, theatrical production, i guess, in my hometown of port talbot, for the national theatre, wales. it took about 2.5 years to develop, and ultimately it was a single performance, a live performance that lasted non—stop for 72 hours, that took place all over the town. and it was about the town, and it was with, i worked with about 2,000 local people on it, ultimately. and it took place over the easter weekend. and it was... so the template for the production,

it was a story based on the events of the passion of christ. but, it was a modern—day story and it was telling, ultimately, a story about that town, now. so you, the jesus—type figure, i know you don't... he was called the teacher, yes. i know you balk at being... he was a local comprehensive school teacher who disappeared. and you were crucified at the end of it. he was ultimately killed on the roundabout in port talbot, yes. laughter and when we began, so the first official episode then, because we sort of did it in what i called "episodes" and the first official episode didn't happen until, i believe it was like 2pm on good friday afternoon, but i spread rumours that if you were to come to the beach when the sun rose you might see something. so there were maybe 100 or so people there. ok, but we should explain, by the end... by the end, depending on who you ask, there was anywhere between 10—15,000 people.

and we're talking about a town that is a population of 40,000. yes. so my character, the point of my character was that he arrived, he was someone from the local community who had disappeared, he had some sort of breakdown. and then on the morning of good friday, he appears down by the sea, with no memory. he's lost his memory, and over the weekend he asks people to tell him stories about the town, and what has been lost, and what has been there, and what people have memories of. and he starts to become a receptacle of all this stuff and when he is finally on the cross, he remembers everything. and he starts listing a sort of, a litany of things in the actual town that have disappeared. and that motivation for you was an inspiration that came i think, when you were in the vatican? because you thought, what is happening now in port talbot is what was happening then. i was on holiday in italy, and i went to rome, i've never been to rome before, and i was very excited to go to rome. and i went to st peter's basilica,

and i was quite overwhelmed by it. for anyone that's been there, it's quite overwhelming being in there. and i thought, ijust need to have a little sit down for a minute and i saw, off in the corner, just a little area that had some chairs and there was no—one there, so i went to sit down, there was a sort of light on it. and i sat in this... and it turned out to be stjoseph‘s chapel. and i sat there and there were paintings on the wall around me depicting jesus‘s ministry. so, all the things he did, you know, there's the — he's tending to the sick, and with children, the dying, and the grieving, and all that kind of stuff. and as i sat there, i thought, "that is exactly what people are doing in port talbot right now." there are organisations and charities and support groups, and you know, carers and teachers and nurses and hospices, and all these things and i was like,

"oh, that's whatjesus did, and that is what community is." that is how we keep community going and in that moment it clicked for me. i was like, "i'm telling the story ofjesus, but it's not the story ofjesus, it's the story of the community that are doing that," and that port talbot was the kind of marginalised. the motorway goes through it, no—one stops in port talbot. it's seen as being dirty because of the industry and it would be... if it were a person, it would be a person thatjesus would have dealt with. but the interesting thing for you, you insists you are not religious you do this play and then you, yourself, for example, take on the moneylenders in wales. and you set up this end high cost credit alliance. yes, well i suppose what happened, the passion happened in 2011, and as a result of that, and me becoming more connected to these different groups and organisations in the town, and having a sense of what it is that keeps communities alive, in very challenging circumstances... i wanted to stay connected. obviously, and they wanted me to, you know, talk about them, have a photograph, because the other experience i had over the 2.5 years, or whatever it was, developing it,

i would come to the town and then go away, and come back, and go away. and each time i came back i would notice that something had gone. something had disappeared, that some service had been cut, so i was very aware of the challenges that were there and how support was being taken away, actively taken away, because of council budgets been cut and all that kind of stuff. my awareness of the importance of what people were doing there was very connected to a bigger picture, more political with a capital p, i suppose, sense of what the context of that was, and i started to not only want to become more involved with the groups, but also started wanting to try and see if i could do something in terms of the big picture as well. and so that eventually led to me getting to the point

where i was like, "i don't want to just have a picture taken, i don't want to just have my face in the paper or my name as the patron saint, i want to do more than that." i was getting to a point in my career as well since 2011, over the next five or six years or whatever, where work was very good for me. i had a lot of choice, i didn't have to audition for things anymore, i could sort of work whenever i wanted to, which meant that i had a fairly steady supply of financial resources, i had a media resource, i could come and talk about things and i thought, right, either i have to take a step back now because it's too much, or i have to take a step forward and ijust have to change things. and the circumstances of my life were such that our daughter was about to leave home, i had lived in america because she had grown up there, and i wanted to be with her, and so she was leaving, and all the planets just aligned to go, you can go and spend more time in britain now, and really do this.

but did you get pushback from people perhaps still who say, "what do you know?" you've got this hollywood life, seriously, what difference can you make? and that's a very good thing to say. i think anyone who gets involved in the sort of things i've got involved in, needs to be... people need to be suspicious of me, people need to not trust that what you say is going to happen. i mean, just because you have some celebrity doesn't mean you get a free pass. these are important things. people rely on this stuff. people are dependent on the kind of support groups and the work that people are doing, you can't mess around with that. and so i think it is important that people are like, "really?" and what i have realised, of course, is that one of the most important resources i can give, one of the most valuable things i can give, is time, so that you are notjust turning up, doing something and running off, that your commitment is long—term, and that you really commit to really trying to do as much as you can understand these issues,

because they are incredibly complicated. you know, it's notjust soundbites, it's notjust going on twitter and writing something ranty. these are really complex. ok, so let's look at one of the things you are doing, because you lead the bid to get the homeless football world cup in cardiff, which is coming up next month. and it is a strange idea, homeless football. it is hard to imagine even how you get a team together, because you've got 500 people, 50 countries. there are over 500 players coming to represent their countries, and they are coming from over 50 different countries, yes. how does it work? and what's the point? so it started for me with an organisation called street football wales, which is a kind of grassroots organisation, and they are the people who create the welsh teams for the homeless world cup each year, and they got in touch with me and said look, we use football as a way to try and break down boundaries around

homelessness and social exclusion, and we create tournaments and leagues and teams. do you want to come and get involved? and my reaction was exactly the same, why are you putting money and energy into doing football for homeless people? why notjust deal with the homelessness? and then i realised the brilliance of how it works, which is that of course the football is the hook, that's what brings people in, that's what gets people to... people who feel like they have been on the outside for so long, feel very alienated, might have all kinds of difficulties around socialising and having access to services and that kind of stuff. suddenly people are coming, they get a bit of self—confidence, they feel part of a team, suddenly they're a bit more motivated, health and well—being starts to pick up a little bit, and then if you take that to the next stage, which is, you get to represent your country, you know, i went to — the first homeless world cup i went to was in oslo, in norway, a few years ago. and there were people there who at that point

were struggling with addictions, maybe to do with heroin or alcohol, you know, struggling with that at that time. and i remember watching someone score a goal for the first time. they'd never scored a goal. it was a woman called dee, she doesn't mind me saying her name, she scored a goal for the first time and i had just been sitting with her and hearing her talk about how she hadn't seen her children for so long and how she was having a tough time that day with stuff, and i watched her score a goal... sorry, i'm very tired at the moment. and i saw how transformational that can be. notjust scoring a goal, but being a part of that event, and i saw how it affected her after that. i've got to ask you, you go from that, which obviously has a profound effect on you, and then you are filming. yeah. is that hard?

it's not hard. it's... so for instance, you mentioned good 0mens, which is a tv series that is out of the moment, that i was in. and we shot a lot of that in 0xfordshire. and at the time i would be travelling from where we were filming in 0xfordshire back to port talbot, the same day, because part of my contract — part of what i now do is make sure that if i am filming on something for a long time, i have enough time within it to come back and forth and be able to do the things i need to do around the other work. and so i would be travelling from 0xfordshire to port talbot. and i would be going from the most beautiful postcard kind of villages, with gorgeous amenities, and really lovely communities there, with all kinds of wonderful things, and then going back through the m4 corridor, through the south wales valleys, where there was very much not that being the case. and that makes you feel like this is not a level playing field. it's nothing against the people, but it just reminds you that there is... the context that this takes place in is not random. it is not by chance.

and we're talking about a time when the area you were in, which was very strong labour supporting, in the most recent european elections, the brexit party topped the poll with 32%, from nowhere. yeah, i mean there's a lot of contradictions. think about the miners‘ strike around 84—85, and that a lot of the people in the areas that were fighting during the miners? strike to hold onto their work, and the people they were fighting against, you could say that they ended up voting in lockstep around brexit. and that is just fascinating, that is very interesting. why might that happen? so i was sort of interested in that. ok, but you're not accepting that it is wanting out of the eu because of what the eu stands for? i think it's a lot of things. i think some people absolutely were voting because theyjust don't like the idea of what being part of the european union is to them,

and i think everyone has a very personal thing about it. i think there definitely is, because i have seen it and i have spoken to people, there is a huge amount of anger and resentment in a lot of communities about what was being lost and what was not replaced, and a lot of blame for that goes into all kinds of areas, and it is very interesting to look into that. my biggest motivating factor around the effects of brexitm, or the aftermath of the brexit vote, what i have held onto, was that in that first period afterwards, it was a huge shock for the country, i think, in terms of its self—image, and particularly in the sort of metropolitan centres, and within the media. and there was a sense of, "oh my goodness, our country is not what we thought it was," and we now have to open up to what is going on in communities that we don't often go and look into, we don't report from. there was a real effort to kind of open that window, and i have watched

as that has closed. i have watched as, in that shock, i think part of me was feeling like, well, there is a very positive aspect to this, which is that maybe the plight of these communities... and you don't think that's any longer the case? i think that slowly started to change into, "who's on this side, who's on that side?" and the media as well started to kind of go, "oh, no, we're in control of this again. no, we know what this story is." and that has been quite a scary thing, that the actual issues have not changed. because you have talked about coming back to see if you can try to do something about the frustrations and the anger that is there. well, that's what i mean. do you think you can, though? well, my starting point was to go... go and listen to people. go and ask people, "what are the things that frustrate you the most? what are the things that you're finding difficult?" and of course, even that conversation is difficult. how do you mediate that conversation, as someone who is coming... has the life i have

and is doing the things i do. already you... it is like quantum physics, just your act of observation affects what you discover. everything that you're saying leads to the obvious question, which is whether, and why wouldn't you, stand as a politician? well, there's a lot of reasons for why that is not a good idea for me. and one of them is... do you rule it out? well, i don't rule it out because i don't rule anything out. what is the most effective use of what i can do can change from any moment to moment. and at the moment i do not believe that that is the most effective use of what i can do. at the moment, politicians are one of the strings, one of the levers to pull. they're just one of them. i don't want to suddenlyjust become one of those levers, i want to be able to pull as many levers as i can. my biggest strength is i don't work for anybody. no—one's paying... i'm not getting wages from someone that i have to be answerable

to in that respect. i can say whatever i want, and why would i suddenly find myself in a position where i have to go, "what does the leader want me to say?" i don't want to do that. michael sheen, thank you for coming on hardtalk. applause good morning. some of us had some sunshine this weekend but others a weekend of relentless rain. in fact, it brought localised flooding. in greater manchester, rochdale, we had over 90 millimetres throughout the weekend. the rain was fairly relentless. a conveyor belt of wet weather

that moved its way up through the south—east. you can see that quite clearly. heavier bursts as well at times although it is starting to weaken as we speak. the story remains the same. this front is going to be with us throughout the day today. there it is on the satellite picture. we see some shower cloud up to the far north—east of scotland and that could bring some heavy, thundery downpours as well over the next few hours. plenty to talk about with monday's weather, starting off pretty murky across scotland. low cloud, mist, still some showers lingering and our weather front sitting there through northern ireland and southern scotland. a week affair, moving its way steadily north to a band of showers. behind it, where we had heavy rain, a better day through northwest england and parts of the midlands, highs of 26. but down on the south—west, an area of low pressure which will bring through the isles of scilly and cornwall, some rain by the end of monday. this low pressure will continue to bring wet and windy weather across the country through tuesday.

heavy, sharp, thundery downpours not out of the question on tuesday and gusts of winds, particularly down into the south—west on exposed coasts, of 45 and possibly 50 mph. sheltered eastern areas will see the best of the dryer brighter weather, so parts of aberdeenshire, running down across that east coast. that's where we will see the highest values of around 21 to 2a degrees. as we move out of tuesday, we'll see see that low pressure, a significant player in the weather story, continuing to drift steadily east, it will take showers with it as well. on wednesday, it looks likely that the emphasis of the showers will be across southern scotland, through the north of england and eastern england as well. so it's a drier story further south and west and not too bad a day into northern ireland and maybe the far north—east of scotland again escaping with some decent weather. highest values of 18 to 22 degrees, just below where we should be, really, for the time of year. but as we move out of wednesday,

high pressure will start to build, so thursday and friday quietens down and just warms up a little. so by the end of the working week, a drier theme but we certainly have changed the feel to our weather. fresher with some sunshine and showers and at times, some gusty winds. good for me.

welcome to newdsay. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. the headlines: after a weekend of protests in hong kong, the beijing government announces a news conference to respond to the crisis. riot police have been moving people through the streets. they're now making arrests. they've fired more tear gas. reinforcements are coming in. the crisis in the territory is now in its eighth week, and there's no sign of it ending. i'm nuala mcgovern in london. also in the programme: russia's leading opposition activist is rushed to hospital. his friends fear he was poisoned in prison. "sing my name" — we visit the indian mountain village