Diyan Zora Archives - The Play Podcast

088 – Roots by Arnold Wesker

by Douglas Schatz | Dec 5, 2024 | Podcast Episodes

Morfydd Clark as Beatie
Roots
Almeida Theatre, London, October 2024
Photo by Marc Brenner

088 – Roots by Arnold Wesker

Arnold Wesker’s play Roots is set in the Norfolk countryside. It is a coming of age story, of doomed love, rural poverty and socialist protest, and most of all, of cultural aspiration and growing up and away from family, from one’s roots. Roots was first presented at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in 1959, before transferring to the Royal Court in London and then to the West End. It is the second play in what is known as The Wesker Trilogy, a sequence of plays drawn from the author’s own life and socialist political concerns that were part of a movement in theatrical form and subject that came to be labelled ‘kitchen sink’ drama.

As we recorded this episode a new production of Roots was finishing its run at the Almeida theatre in London. It played in repertory with John Osborne’s, Look Back in Anger, which in repertory scheduling of our own, we also covered in our most recent episode. The Almeida show starred Morfydd Clark in an effervescent and very moving performance as the coming-of-age Beatie. The production is directed by Diyan Zora, and I am delighted to say that Diyan joins me today to tell us about Wesker’s classic play.

Diyan Zora

Diyan Zora was the 2021 recipient of the Genesis Future Director’s Award, which is a collaboration between the Genesis Foundation and the Young Vic Theatre that over the past 20 years has developed the careers of some of the UK’s most dynamic directors.

Diyan’s directing credits include the Pulitzer-prize winning play English at the RSC and Kiln Theatre; Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles in Chichester, Tom Fool at the Orange Tree Theatre, Lysistrata at the Lyric Hammersmith; and Klippies at the Young Vic.

Diyan is also a playwright, and was a member of the Bush Theatre’s 2022 Emerging Writer’s Group.

Recommended Play

Diyan recommended The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen.

Photo by Marc Brenner

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115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg

Oct 6, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.

Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.

Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.

114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Sep 22, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.

I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 24, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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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.