thousands of people defied the ban on mass gatherings to join rallies triggered by the killing of george floyd, in police custody in the us. demonstrators in bristol pulled down a bronze statue of a 17th century slave trader, edward colston, and threw it into the harbour britain's prime minister, borisjohnson, has said that the anti—racism demonstrations have been "subverted by thuggery", after a small number of protestors attacked police officers in central london for a second day in a row. mrjohnson said the violence was "a betrayal of the cause" the marches purport to serve. large numbers of people are continuing to take part in peaceful protests against police brutality and racism in the us. tens of thousands gathered in cities including washington and new york, as well as small towns across the country. the protests began as an expression of anger over the police killing of george floyd, but now encompass many local causes as well.

now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. i'm stephen sackur. the coronavirus pandemic has dealt a devastating blow to the performing arts. no—one knows when theatres like this one will be able to unlock the doors. so what happens? do the riders performers, the venues themselves that enrich our cultural life? iam themselves that enrich our cultural life? i am speaking today to arguably the best british playwright of his generation, james graham. what do we do to protect our culture ?

what do we do to protect our culture? james graham, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. theatres are closed right now. yourjob is very difficult to do in many ways. does it feel like this pandemic has brought your world crashing down? it feel like this pandemic has brought your world crashing down7m does feel like that way but it must feel like that across every sector at the moment. the only problem is that even though the virus affects all actors —— sectors it will affect the theatre the most. it's what makes theatres so special, it requires you to be close to people and that is one thing we cannot do at the moment and we are unsure, based on the science, when that will ever happen. so companyjohnson bars can open up this summer, that will not be the case for theatre. people have used phrases like existential threat a lot during this pandemic about different businesses in different sectors. perhaps more than any they have used it about theatre.

some theatres say they are very close to going bankrupt. you, obviously, a well connected in the industry. is that exaggeration or is it true? it is really true. it is devastating and upsetting. the very first buildings to close, they closed because the government told them to because public safety is the most important thing. because the business model is a mix of rock's office, both ticket sales for the show that night and also the majority of that is advance booking and booking to see hamilton next spring, they have dried up for an audience for an audience —— they have dried up another an audience who does not the confidence to book ahead. they still have expensive rents but zero income. you have called for an aggressive government bailout and others have said they wa nt bailout and others have said they wantan bailout and others have said they want an emergency relief specifically for the performing arts and in particular for theatre. specifically for the performing arts and in particularfor theatre. yet i

am mindful of than national theatre, it gets a substantial government grant already. in this time of crisis where the entire economy is facing a severe long—term recession, using the public really believes that government should pump special targeted money into theatres?m that government should pump special targeted money into theatres? it is the most important point and i do not disagree. it is a hard argument to make against the black drop of every person in the country suffering economically. i wish i hadn't used the word bailout. the actual term is investment. an investment that the government a lwa ys investment that the government always gets back and if the economy is going to recover and the one benefit of this kind of crisis is that it benefit of this kind of crisis is thatitis benefit of this kind of crisis is that it is not all these industries are basketcase businesses, they are profitable in normal times. once people re—emerge into the light they can be profitable again. it isjust

that theatres are uniquely and disproportionately affected in that they will be the very last buildings to open. if that is the case, in the last decade, the arts and culture and entertainment were almost the fastest growing sector of the entire economy. nurses and hospital beds and teachers are going to need those businesses that do return a profit to the economy to be firing on all cylinders and we can do that and wa nt to cylinders and we can do that and want to do that you cannot do that with zero income for up to nine months. i want to get a little personal if i may. for you, as a writer, for both screen and theatre, what has happened to your creative juices, your creative impulse while you, like all of us, have been wrestling with lock down, with isolation. you are living on your own, right? so there is a sense of isolation. what is that done to you? i live on my own and i normally enjoy my own company because i am a writer and a need to be in my own head a lot. but what is really

beautiful and i am so grateful to be allowed to be a creative is that you have these moments of self—imposed lockdown where you can just be in your own head and creative and then your own head and creative and then you emerge and have wonderful moments of real collective action, making a play in a rehearsal with a company of actors over four weeks and then sharing that with audience members is almost the most public thing you can do. so collective and so thing you can do. so collective and so shared. is that getting to you? but i don't think i am more special than anybody else but it is getting to and a sense that it is... writing isa to and a sense that it is... writing is a bit ofa to and a sense that it is... writing is a bit of a weird job. you are sat in your office, your room, your kitchen table, making things up. there will always be a level of imposter syndrome and silliness about it not being a properjob but i know it means a lot to many people to watch tv dramas and films and plays so what motivates you when

that weirdness is knowing that eventually one day you will share it and it will notjust be something a bstra ct and it will notjust be something abstract you make up. it is just very ha rd to abstract you make up. it is just very hard to find yourself in that situation when you do worry about an industry, the oldest industry in the world, theatre, and its ability to survive. also, like everybody else, like you, i spent a vast amount of my timejust being like you, i spent a vast amount of my time just being really worried for people, those i loved, my friends and the part of your head that really worries about people and society is the part of your head you have to enter to do the work and sometimes you just do not want to go when there. you mentioned an interesting phrase a minute ago about imposter syndrome and i know you are talking specifically about how you feel right now under lockdown but i just how you feel right now under lockdown but ijust wonder whether you, being are being honest about something deeper? you come from a background that most people in theatre probably do not come from. your mum and dad raised you in north

nottinghamshire in a coalfield area, depressed economically, you went to a local school there, frankly the ambition for most kids was probably not to aim at west end or even think about it. do you think that has fed into the way you feel about where you are today? in terms of... yes, it must have done. it feeds into everything doesn't it? nottinghamshire, uniquely, is an interesting political and cultural place because it is not quite north and it is not quite southern and pulitzer pots actors in terms like —— in times like the miners strike andi —— in times like the miners strike and i can only assume that has impacted on in my writing it has impacted on in my writing it has impacted a desire or sense, a desire to create empathy for multiple different points of view when it comes to politics and not have my work be an activist and agenda

towards one particular point. in the 19605 towards one particular point. in the 1960s there was a wave of writing drama that was written very much by working—class writers. some from nottinghamshire, from the places you are from. do you identify today as a working class writer?|j are from. do you identify today as a working class writer? i struggle with it but don't know why i do and i shouldn't. the language attentively use is that i am from a working—class background but i accept, even though i sort of reject the idea behind it, that you cannot have an artist and working—class. i know it is hard to have a play in the west end with the lights in the glamour and to feel authentically working—class. i can only assume that i am because i am from that background and it is important for me to get those book voices into my plays. and it is looking at your life, that your mother, for example, and your teachers at school, they

a lwa ys and your teachers at school, they always encourage you to think big when it of and the arts. you were fed a hope and an expectation that you could do it. it is not billy elliot, not the hollywood story where i faced resisted i am from teachers or from my family it was brilliant. they love coming to see me appear in a school play. they'd not think it was silly, nor non— masculine, any of those things you normally associate with the arts in working—class communities. normally associate with the arts in working—class communitieslj working—class communities.” remember my mother burst onto tears and —— burst into tears when i got ona train and —— burst into tears when i got on a train for the first time to head to london. the only reason i am now a playwright with, fortunately, having plays on broadway or having tv dramas and films in america and finding myself at the emmy awards

last year in hollywood is because i went to a comprehensive school where the teacher who thought that working—class kids should read plays and that is the only reason i am doing what i do today. and yet you are not doing what i do today. and yet you a re not really doing what i do today. and yet you are not really a political writer. you do not have, it seems to me, a strong political set of views which colour all of your work. it is more that you are trying to find the humanity in politics. is that true? i suppose i have a real geekyjoy in looking at systems and processes and institutions and trying to work out what makes them tick. with this house which is set in 1970s westminster, the last parliament we had prior to the coalition. i kept margaret thatcher and others off stage because it... itjust did not interest me. i thought we were familiar with the ideology of left and right in the tension between

them but we are less familiar with, i certainly was, with that gothic palace and how impenetrable it is, i did not know how it works. i did not know how legislation passes through the house. how a whip persuades a member of parliament who does not wa nt to member of parliament who does not want to vote a certain way to walk through that lobby and i always think it is a bit of a gift to be a british playwright in particular because we are so old and our systems a re because we are so old and our systems are so old that naturally they lean towards absurdity. he turned the arcane detail of westminster process into a successful play but then you did something fascinating with a different sort of political complicated situation. you turned the brexit few role in the uk into a successful tv drama called the uncivil war. in the heart of that was not david cameron or boris johnson, it was a guy who at the

time very few people had heard of, called dominic cummings. yeah, what happened to him?! most of us know of him now is borisjohnson is most important advisor. but why did you, long before he attached himself to prime ministerjohnson, why did you see him as a fascinating character? he really is a fascinating character and that often sounds increasingly stale in terms of the sound level of conversation. as you have seen he is a disruptive and unpredictable surprising catherine wheel of conversation and linguistics. did you meet him and talk to him as research? it was late. we had a tactic is sometimes effective, you identify your person in the middle of the universe, dominic cummings, and you start on the outskirts and rotate your way in graduallyjust so

you can gather information and feel confident when you get there. i interviewed as many people are so called from vote leave, interns or marketing and communications people. and once there was a draft and i needed cummings, i had things i wa nted needed cummings, i had things i wanted to know and i was grateful. he devoted a lot of time to it. you need to strike the balance between spending time with people and you may be start to feel a sense of wanting to represent them fairly. and that is where it gets complicated. you are portraying and real events but in a fictionalised form and some critics, i will quote to you a campaigning journalist. you got involved in a public debate with her about the veracity, the trueness to live of your brexit screenplay and she said that your dominic cummings, the one you created

on—screen is a shalott character. a maverick polymath who solves problems no—one else can. in your portrayal made out that he won through genius and not through allegedly criminal methods. and because you created a performance and wrote a screenplay that was so great, that is what sticks in people's minds. the positive take on a guy that so many people in britain have grave reservations about. you have grave reservations about. you have to take that responsibility really seriously. i respect her but i disagree. on the night of the broadcast, i retweeted all of my twitter followers to her feed so they could see someone telling them how terrible my genre was. to be fair, she really likes the drama, but she just disagrees... she fair, she really likes the drama, but she just disagrees. .. she almost liked it too much. she felt it invited people to not dig into the real difficult detail of the brexit campaign, but actually to just

admire the sort of personality, the fizzy whizbang personality of the quy fizzy whizbang personality of the guy you fizzy whizbang personality of the guy you put centrestage.” fizzy whizbang personality of the guy you put centrestage. i also accept the man that comes with that intellectual ‘s, some of that will be there. i disagree. i think brexit creates a frame for everybody through which we see it based on our own political prejudices, so no disrespect to her, that is why i wa nted disrespect to her, that is why i wanted to engage with her all the way through is that she wants a certain kind of film and i didn't wa nt to certain kind of film and i didn't want to give it to her. you are not a campaigner. and what you are also as an entertainer. it strikes me that what is absolutely amazing about you is you can make people laugh, cry, feel empathy and sympathy in stories which to most folks are about politicians who they are deeply cynical about, politics they don't want to hear more of, yet you take that and turn it... it has to be because whether you are a

journalist or a writer like me, you have the subject matter which feels very far away and it is just an exercise and ringing them closer to most people ‘s understanding, so of course it has to be funny and you have to be moved. unlikejournalism, the greatest political weapon is empathy and humanising people we don't normally see as human beings. which take you as far as rupert murdoch. isn't nobody that you can't empathise with? i really believe the best way... we are in such a divisive time, and my question is always, how do you convert people? how do you win? the best people to hold diplomatic and problematic people to account is not to just demonise them, because when you are just getting the view back that you wa nt to just getting the view back that you want to see. the best way to hold

them under a great deal of scrutiny is to first give them a defence. whether we like rupert murdoch or not, has revolutionised and transformed the news industry and has certain skills we can either admire or malign, but that got pretend... it is simply a question of asking an audience to go, what motivates them? what do they think they are doing that is good? at the end, ican they are doing that is good? at the end, i can disagree and the negative impact it has on society, but over the course of two hours of theatre, thatis the course of two hours of theatre, that is the time to get more reasonable, a guardian reading audience for the first time to say, what is it about the summit appears to more people than appeal to my paper, and then you justin moore —— both things. as acute and the people watching is all over the world i may be wondering he sounds fascinating in his plays sound incredibly multifaceted, but he writes such a british stories, they are not releva nt to british stories, they are not relevant to me. is there something universal that goes far beyond the

detail of westminster process or the tabloid newspapers in the uk?” definitely do, because there is a ruler keeping my head that the more specific you get about a time. or a culture, a nation ‘s story, the more universal it is. as well as exporting work across the world, we receive work across the world, whether it is an arthur miller play from the 1950s parasite, korean film. the specificity doesn't narrow the appeal. they widen it because they strangely make it more timeless. you have talked about the importance of pure entertainment. are you thinking about going in different directions, getting away from the straight play? without a doubt. i probably saw more musicals going up, and that is my access to theatre, and the artform is more theatrical than plays often. yes, i am writing a musical with eltonjohn at the moment. it is a story that he

found, actually. it is about 1980s tell evangelism and how the television industries were often quite big, and they became the largest ministries in the world with millions of worshippers. it is set in reagan america and the tension between faith and religion, that sort of my bed. i am trying to make ita sort of my bed. i am trying to make it a little bit of political and i have a conversation about that. can you and elton john have a conversation about that. can you and eltonjohn actually work on it collaboratively and collectively even now in a time of pandemic?m is not easy. none of the great 20th century musicals were written over skype, the joy of that collaboration is that you are around a piano together and you feel vulnerable enough to make bad ideas and make bad choices, but you can improve. it is difficult. you and elton john are currently zooming and sharing ideas... currently zooming and sharing ideas. . . we currently zooming and sharing ideas... we are starting to. there isa ideas... we are starting to. there is a script and songs, but i don't

know how anyone else does it but i get new ideas for a script and inspire him to do a song, so you have a back and forth tennis match where he comes up with a song idea that i have to rewrite the script for. look, iam not going that i have to rewrite the script for. look, i am not going to try and play it cool when i am in my house and elton john zooms, play it cool when i am in my house and eltonjohn zooms, i have to check my background is cool enough because he is in my house. but he is one of our greatest artist and he wrote one of the most successful musicals of all time in terms of the lion king. you can sneak in some really important questions and that is what i will try and do. when can we see it? we will try and finish it in lockdown and then i guess hopefully next year when theatres reopen. you have written very frankly about mixed feeling you have that incredibly turbulent times we are living through, which include

obviously right now coronavirus and also the rise of realism and nationalism, deep polarisation within societies, uk, us, or many other countries. you have set on the one hand it is extremely disturbing to live through these times, but has a writer, one selfishly thinks what an amazing amount of subject matter and material. right now, you finding particularly in this covid—i9 pandemic all sorts of ideas coming to you about new humans story to tell in the midst of crisis?” to you about new humans story to tell in the midst of crisis? i think you have to balance it with feeling every human instinct for the nature of the tragedy, but you can't silence... basically the political pa rt silence... basically the political part of your brain, which is if we believe, and i do, that storytelling isn't just a believe, and i do, that storytelling isn'tjust a distraction or a conviction, it is a tool that we can use at difficult times to make sense of things that feel so hard to make sense of, that you feel, as i'm sure many of my peers do, a sense of

response ability to getting in the mix despite the messiness that sometimes comes with it, in terms of the brexit film, the arts and culture need a seat at this table because we have two, it has always been since greek times the way that we make sense of the world. you can't look around, what happened in the last year, the parading of parliament, this incredible pandemic happening now in america and spreading around the world in terms of they justify their anger, we spreading around the world in terms of theyjustify their anger, we can dig into it. the question you have any anxiety you have as a writer is what is my story and what is my role here? even though as you recognise i come from a working—class community that was often ignored and deserves a voice at the table in the right man, and! a voice at the table in the right man, and i don't think it is my place to make sense of what is happening in minnesota at the moment. it is my responsibility to step aside at that point and find people have that voice and the anger

thatis people have that voice and the anger that is really authentic. a final thought about anger. is anger a very positive creative fuel, or can actually be corrosive? that is a very good and difficult question. historically, especially in british theatre, anger has always played a role. the angry man in the 1950s that came out of a burning sense of injustice, and if that motivates you to write them, absolutely own it. it is always —— not always my starting point. i get angry, but what i don't want, and! point. i get angry, but what i don't want, and i think we need a theatre that it want, and i think we need a theatre thatitis want, and i think we need a theatre that it is provocative, that is dangerous, but the things that i wa nt to dangerous, but the things that i want to write personally, something very sentimental and possibly some people might think i am not the political —— right political playwright for this time, it is unifying and that can bring people together to see different points of view when those points of view are legitimate and exist. so sometimes i

might write because i am angry, angry about how toxic that exit referendum was, but that won't be the outcome i want to engender in the outcome i want to engender in the audience. james graham, it has been a pleasure to have you on hardtalk. thank you very much.” can't shake your hand .my thank you. hello there. the first week of summer has certainly brought a big change in the weather pattern. over the weekend, cool northerly winds, some rain and a good deal of cloud around as well. interestingly, at loftus in redcar in cleveland, there's been more rain in the last week than we've had during the whole of spring. the start of the new week, though, looks a lot drier,

the winds won't be as strong either. that's because we've got this area of high pressure, or at least the nose of it heading towards the uk. it may not last long, but for a while, it will keep those weather fronts at bay from the north—west of the uk. now, many places will have a dry day on monday, the sunshine coming and going. there'll still be a few light showers blown onto some of those north sea coasts. during the afternoon, watch out for some heavy slow—moving showers in wales and the south—west of england. but on the whole, a lot of dry weather around. temperatures not very different from what we had on sunday, but we'll find that the winds are a good deal lighter today. and those light winds continue into the evening. it shouldn't be too long before we see the back of those showers from the south—west, and overnight into tuesday morning, it's going to be dry pretty much everywhere. a fair bit of cloud around, perhaps not quite as chilly across scotland and the north—east of england as it will be first thing on monday morning. moving into tuesday, and there's still quite a lot of cloud in the picture.

whilst most places will be dry, there's the odd shower developing through the day ahead of the main change, which is this band of rain here arriving into western scotland and northern ireland, probably very late on in the day on tuesday if not into the evening. temperatures on the cool side for many, 15 to 17 degrees. then more significant changes arrive from mid—week onwards. we've got that weather front driving some rain southwards, pressure is dropping, we end up with an area of low pressure across the uk on wednesday. we have got some cloud, some outbreaks of rain pushing towards the south—east, and whilst it may well brighten up a bit further north, look at all the showers developing, and those actually could be heavy and thundery. because there is more cloud and more rain around, temperatures will be a bit lower, 14to16 degrees. that area of low pressure is still going to be around during thursday and perhaps into friday. it's drifting further south as well. so the wetter weather as we head towards the latter part of the week more likely to be across england and wales, we will see the winds picking up,

but by the end of the week, it could be a warmer wind.

this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm aaron safir. thousands of people across britain take part in more anti racism protests. in bristol, a statue of a 17th century slave trader is torn down and rolled into the river. it represents years of hurt and just a lot of emotion and hatred that has been built up inside of us that we have internalised. it is utterly disgraceful and speaks to the act of disorder, public disorder that have now become distracting from the cause in which people are actually protesting about and trying to empathise and sympathise with. in london, a huge crowd gathered at the us embassy — as anger over the killing of george floyd in minneapolis