David Edgar's Destiny - 50th anniversary revival (rehearsed reading)

LATEST CAST ANOUNCEMENT: 

• Roger Allam: award-winning stage and screen actor - Les Misérables, The Thick of It, Endeavour, Game of Thrones.
• Emma Manton: acclaimed stage actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and TV's The Office (UK).
• Akshay Khanna: star of Murder Bot, Chloe, The Doll Factory and Red, White and Royal Blue. 
• Geoffrey Streatfeild: renowned actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in films Kinky Boots and The Other Boleyn Girl.
• Hardeep Matharu: Byline Times editor-in-chief and cultural commentator.

Written and abridged by David Edgar
Directed by Umar Butt
Produced by Ben Dickenson

First staged in 1976, David Edgar’s Destiny quickly established itself as one of the most important political plays of its generation. Hailed by critics for its forensic examination of British fascism and praised for its scale and ambition, the play won major awards and went on to be adapted into a landmark television drama, bringing its urgent themes to an even wider audience.

Fifty years on, Destiny feels disturbingly prescient. Tracing the social, economic and political forces that enable the far right to take root, the play exposes how racism, nationalism and opportunism intertwine. It has powerful lessons for today’s climate of resurgent authoritarianism and right-wing populism.

This special event presents an abridged reading of Destiny, followed by a panel discussion exploring how the play’s depiction of the rise of the far right then and offering vital insights for confronting it now. The panel will feature David Edgar himself - one of Britain’s most distinguished playwrights, whose work spans theatre, television and political commentary. Edgar is also co-author of The Little Black Book of the Populist Right: What it is, why it’s on the march and how to stop it, signed copies of a new edition of which will be available to purchase at this event.

Presented by Bylines Times, in collaboration with Bylines Network, this revival offers a rare opportunity to revisit a seminal work of political theatre, and to ask what it can teach us about the world we face today.

• David Edgar, Roger Allam, Umar Butt and Hardeep Matharu (chair)
• Kenan Malik — writer, broadcaster and commentator on race, identity and politics.
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown — journalist, author and prominent commentator on multiculturalism, migration and human rights.
  Asad Rehman — journalist and commentator focusing on politics, media and social justice, CEO Friends of the Earth.

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