Bonus episode: Michael Sheen on class, culture and Britishness
The New Statesman | UK politics and culture
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2022
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ahead of his guest-edited issue of the New Statesman, the actor and campaigner Michael Sheen speaks to Anoosh Chakelian for a special episode of the New Statesman podcast. Titled "A Dream of Britain", the magazine explores what British identity means in 2022.
They discuss why he wanted to tackle the idea of our national story, how widening inequality and the British obsession with class limits diversity in the arts, why he thinks Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn have more in common than either might like, and what it means to be a "not-for-profit" actor.
The special edition of the New Statesman will be on newsstands on Thursday 24 March and podcast listeners can subscribe now for just £12 for 12 weeks at newstatesman.com/podcastoffer
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statement podcast is sponsored by EDF, Britain's biggest generator of zero carbon electricity. |
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| 0:32.0 | Hi, I'm Anouche and I'm delighted to be joined on today's episode of The New Statement |
| 0:35.9 | podcast by the actor Michael Sheen, who's guest editing a special issue of The New Statement out |
| 0:40.6 | this week exploring the idea of a British dream. It has contributions from Armando Inucci, |
| 0:46.0 | Gary Young, Bernardine Everisto, Andrew Mar, Jeremy Della and Ali Smith and many more, |
| 0:51.4 | as well as pieces from the 11 writers from the mentoring scheme called A Writing Chance, |
| 0:55.4 | which he co-founded to showcase new and aspiring storytellers from underrepresented backgrounds. |
| 1:09.6 | The New Statement issue that I've guested at it is about exploring what is the story |
| 1:15.6 | that we either consciously or unconsciously believe represents us as a nation. |
| 1:22.1 | And does it really? I talk about the idea that there are lots of different alternative names for |
| 1:27.6 | Britain, the United Kingdom, but they tend to also be names for England. So, |
| 1:32.8 | Albion is a name, a sort of a more romantic name for the whole of our islands, but actually it |
| 1:39.3 | also just means England. And yet, of course, England is the only one of the whole nations that |
| 1:43.8 | doesn't have its own anthem. So, there's lots of contradictions in there as well. |
| 1:47.7 | Yeah, that's very true, actually. Yes. And then in that piece that you cite the one that you've |
| 1:52.5 | written in the magazine, introducing the subject, I think it's really interesting because you rightly |
| 1:57.1 | say that we often hear statements about Britain and things like this is not who we are or what |
| 2:01.6 | has Britain become. And actually, you've heard a bit of that in our slow response to |
... |
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