Roy Williams joins Samira Ahmed to talk about Death of England: Delroy. Just before Lockdown 2, this play\u2019s opening night became its closing night. The understudy Michael Balogun had just stepped into the role. Luckily the press and audience loved it, and the film of that performance will be available on the National Theatre\u2019s youtube channel this Friday. Directed by Clint Dyer, and written by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer, this powerful monologue explores the experiences of a working class Black British man who has been told by his best friend that he \u2018will never be one of us\u2019.
Fred D\u2019Aguiar spent his childhood in Guyana, his teens in South London and now lives in California. All this experience is distilled in his novels, plays and, especially, his many books of poetry. We talk to him about his new collection, Letters to America which addresses his adopted country in poems such as \u2018Burning Paradise\u2019 and \u2018Downtown L.A\u2019, but also Britain and the Caribbean, with work influenced by Philip Larkin, Derek Walcott and Calypso.
Digga D is a twenty year old star of the UK Drill music scene on the brink of global fame and fortune. He has also been convicted and imprisoned for planning a knife attack. A new BBC Three documentary follows him as he leaves prison and attempts to return to his recording career. Can he rehabilitate himself in spite of being saddled with a Criminal Behaviour Order that means the police vet his lyrics line by line? And can Drill music escape its connection to gangs and violence? We\u2019ll ask the journalist Andre Johnson, presenter and director of Terms and Conditions, a YouTube commissioned documentary about the UK Drill scene.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed\nProducer: Julian May\nStudio Manager: Emma Harth