98. Mandela the Musical: With Kwame Kwei-Armah

Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

This is our last podcast of the year so we’re going out on a high by talking to Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director at The Young Vic, about staging the world premiere of ‘Mandela the Musical’, set to become the most talked about show of the next few weeks. Mandela is played by Michael Luwoye, who played both the title role and Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Winnie Mandela is played by Scottish actor Danielle Fiamanya who played Elsa in ‘Frozen’.

The musical has been staged with the full cooperation of Mandela’s family so listen to Kwame tell the story of how it came about and why he took the plunge to shape this well-known resistance story as a musical. It covers the 30 years from the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 to Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.

We’ll be back on air again on Sunday 15th January but meanwhile, thank you to all our listeners for staying with us over the last three years and we wish you all a very happy Christmas.