Roy Williams Archives - The Play Podcast

086 – Death of England by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams

by Douglas Schatz | Nov 5, 2024 | Podcast Episodes

086 – Death of England by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams

Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ Death of England is a trilogy of interconnected plays that offers an account of the state of the nation from the perspective of two working-class families, one white and one black. In part one, Michael is grieving for the death of his father, while trying to make sense of the complicated legacy of his father’s racism. In part two, Michael’s best friend, Delroy, presents an alternative view of Michael and his family, and of England, from his experience as a young black man. In the final play, Closing Time, Michael’s sister, Carly, and Delroy’s mother, Denise provide their voice on the challenges of living with their respective families in a multi-racial country.

The trilogy had a decade-long gestation, beginning in 2014 with a ten-minute film introducing Michael grieving for his late father, which Dyer and Williams then expanded into a full-length play in the form of a monologue delivered in a raging performance by Rafe Spall at the National Theatre in early 2020. Delroy was due to tell his story on the same stage in the Autumn of 2020 when Covid forced the closure of our theatres. In an inventive response to lockdown, Dyer and Williams amalgamated these first two monologues into a staged film entitled Death of England: Face to Face. The final part of the family story was performed at the National in October 2023, before all three plays were updated and mounted together at the Soho Place theatre in London in the summer of 2024.

The plays certainly touched a nerve with its audiences, and I am delighted and honoured to be able to welcome playwright, Roy Williams, to the podcast to talk about his searing state-of-the nation drama.

Roy Williams

Roy Williams is one of Britain’s most important playwrights, exploring “the fault lines of race, class and nationhood”, as critic Dan Rebellato describes his work, in more than 20 plays, including Death of England, Sing Yer Heart out for the Lads, Sucker Punch, The No-Boys Cricket Club, Fallout, and an adaptation of Sam Selvon’s 1956 Windrush novel The Lonely Londoners.

Roy has also written for radio and television, including 8 seasons of the contemporary crime series The Interrogation on BBC Radio, and the BAFTA nominated TV film, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle.

He was awarded an OBE for Services to Drama in 2008.

Recommended Play

Roy recommended Class Enemy by Nigel Williams.

Photo by Piers Allardyce

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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.

Roy Williams

by Douglas Schatz | Nov 4, 2024 | Contributor

Roy Williams

Roy has also written for radio and television, including eight seasons of the contemporary crime series The Interrogation on BBC Radio, and the BAFTA nominated TV film, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle.

He was awarded an OBE for Services to Drama in 2008.

Photo by Piers Allardyce

Podcast Episode(s)

086 - Death of England by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams

Recommended Play(s)

Roy recommended Class Enemy by Nigel Williams.