Pioneering play Top Girls turns 40, do publishers owe a duty of care to memoirists? and the benefits of stopping the show

A reimagining of Caryl Churchill’s ground-breaking and celebrated play, Top Girls, opens this week at the Liverpool Everyman which sets the play – about female ambition and success across centuries and cultures - in Merseyside. Playwright Charlotte Keatley and theatre critic Susannah Clapp discuss the play’s themes and its continuing impact forty years after its premiere.

Prince Harry’s book Spare and the ripples it’s created have led to questions about the writing and publication of memoirs. In recent years, there has been a widening of the voices encouraged to write and getting published, but what is the impact on the authors, and should there be a greater duty of care? Agent Rachel Mills and Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love, a memoir about losing her brother, join Front Row to discuss.

The show must go on has long been the mantra of those working in theatre but last August, David Byrne, Artistic Director of New Diorama Theatre, made an astonishing announcement which began with the words, “The end of the show must go on” and went on to state that the theatre would be closing its doors for at least six months to allow time for an artistic reset. As New Diorama Theatre reopens, David joins Front Row to discuss what the resetting has revealed.

Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Picture: Top Girls – Lauren Lane as Pope Joan – Photographer’s Credit Marc Brenner