Stirrer TV

THE LUTZ REPORT............ON DAVID EDGAR

27-03-2010

Legendary Brummie playwright David Edgar talks to Richard Lutz for Stirrer TV about the issues raised by his new production at the Birmingham Rep - a production that summons up a murky chapter in the city’s past.

David Edgar, if anything, can’t be accused of being miserly about his work ethic. By the time he was 23, he had eight productions under his wing.

He’s now in his early sixties. So, just how many plays has he written?

‘Probably over fifty,’ he tells me. ‘A lot of the early ones were short and, thank goodness, were never published. They’ve gone under the bridge.’

Most of his work, though, hasn’t gone to the great archive in the sky and today he has a solid reputation for his politically driven material

Edgar grew up in Birmingham and returned after bouts of Bradford and Manchester to live, write and teach in the city.

His latest play, at The Birmingham Rep, is an adaptation of a book by Julian Barnes called Arthur and George. It’s a true story about how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (yes, he of Sherlock Holmes notoriety) came to the aid of an Asian lawyer in Birmingham who was wrongly jailed on a racially motivated charge.

It all happened a century ago. So, the big question, the one you have to ask any playwright these days, is it still relevant?

Edgar is off like a shot.

The play is about systemic race hatred, he says. And he finds it ‘staggering’ that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saw things so clearly 100 years ago when he first heard about the case against the lawyer.

‘Conan Doyle really discovered what we know the Macpherson Report into Stephen Lawrence discovered - institutional racism. It was the fish rotting from the head.’

‘So, yes, it is extremely relevant.’

He points to Birmingham’s troublesome history over race: Enoch Powell and his infamous speech; the ‘difficult’ West Midlands police and its infamous Serious Crime Squad; and, the infamous Oswald Mosley’s return to the city after WWII.

A lot of infamy there but luckily, he says, things have improved slowly over the past two decades.

‘We have a great tradition of welcoming people. This will be the second city after Leicester (coincidentally Barnes’ home town) to have a majority of non white people. It is a record to be proud of.’

But there is a shadow on the cultural horizon, he warns.

‘There is no question that the police responded in good ways to the McPherson Report. But there is a tendency now towards anti Muslim racism and that’s on the rise. You see it in the press, with stop and search laws and with manipulation of anti-terrorism legislation.’

His stage adaptation, he feels, is a valid vehicle to look back on these issues historically

On a different tack, as for taking on someone else’s work, he’s relaxed about Arthur and George. As he is about his re-telling of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company 20 odd years ago.

‘Most of the great films have some other material in there somewhere,’ he says pointing to movies such as Casablanca and The Godfather, ‘and no one complains about that.’

The new play is at The Rep with its huge stage and large capacity. But are there alternatives?

‘The problem with Birmingham is the size of the theatres. If we could persuade the Luftwaffe to bomb Birmingham to smithereens again we wouldn’t have three 900-1200 seaters which we have with the Alex, the Hippodrome and The Rep.’

He sees an improvement when the new library opens its 350 seat theatre. But overall, the problem, he is convinced, is the architecture of the city’s theatres and not whether there are audiences to see productions.

Arthur and George is at the Rep until 10th April. See Paula Elenor’s review here.

WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE

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