Mark Gatiss as Arturo Ui
Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon
April 2026
Photo by Marc Brenner
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s political satire, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is what its announcer calls a “gangster spectacle”. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui, who by extortion and violence seizes control of the local vegetable market. Brecht, who fled Nazi Germany in 1933, wrote the play in a matter of weeks in March 1941, while he and his family were in Finland awaiting visas to travel to the United States. Although he hoped to see the play produced in America, it was 18 years before it had its first stage production, in Berlin in 1959, three years after Brecht’s own death. This first production by the Berliner Ensemble theatre company that he had founded on his return to Germany in 1947, featured his widow and his daughter in the cast, as well as his son-in-law who starred as Arturo Ui. The production ran for an incredible 15 years.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company is playing at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss in a wonderfully oleaginous portrayal of the title character. The show is exuberant and funny, but also chilling, because the central message of the play feels disconcertingly topical. It is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
So, I am delighted to be joined by two guests who are eminently qualified to guide us through Brecht’s provocative parable. First is playwright Stephen Sharkey, whose translation of the text of the play is the one currently being performed by the RSC. And my second guest is Tom Kuhn, who is Emeritus Fellow in 20th century German Literature at St Hugh’s college, Oxford University, and who has written extensively about Brecht and his work.
Stephen Sharkey
Playwright Stephen Sharkey has translated and adapted a wide variety of classic and contemporary stories for the stage, including works by Euripides, Aristophanes, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Georges Feydeau and F. Scott Fitzgerald. His adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was first produced at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2011, and revised and revived at the RSC’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2026.
His play The May Queen was also prodcued at the Liverpool Playhouse, and he has written four Christmas shows for Northern Stage in Newcastle, all directed by Erica Whyman. His adaptation of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth was produced at the Kiln Theatre in London in 2018, directed by Indhu Rubasingham.
Stephen recommended The Oresteia by Aeschylus.
Dr Tom Kuhn
Tom Kuhn is an Emeritus Fellow of 20th century German Literature at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford.
He is also the General Editor of Bloomsbury Methuen Drama’s Bertolt Brecht publications. which include not only Brecht’s plays, but also volumes such as Brecht on Art and Politics (2003), Brecht on Theatre (2014), Brecht on Performance (2014) and Bertolt Brecht’s Refugee Conversations (2019).
Tom is the co-translator of Bertolt Brecht – Love Poems (2014) and Bertolt Brecht – Collected Poems (2018), both published by W.W. Norton and Company.
Tom recommended Peter Brook’s adaptation of The Mahabharata.
He also recommended The Caucasion Chalk Circle as his favourite Brecht play.
Listen here to our episode on that play: 053 The Caucasion Chalk Circle
The Texts
113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
110 – Our Town by Thornton Wilder
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Playwright Edward Albee described Thornton Wilder’s Our Town as “the greatest American play ever written.” In fact Wilder’s quintessential portrait of rural America in a bygone time has somehow transcended its iconic American setting to become a universal meditation on mortality, community, and how we live our individual lives, wherever that may be.
The play premiered on Broadway in 1938, winning Wilder the Pulitzer Prize, and it has been a staple of school, amateur and stock performance ever since. In fact, according to critic John Lahr writing in the introduction to the text of the Penguin edition, “the play is performed somewhere in the world every day.”
Howard Sherman, author of Another Day’s Begun – Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century, joins me to explore this American classic.
Michael Sheen as the Stage Manager in Our Town, Welsh National Theatre, photo by Helen Murray.
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