Discussion: Post show discussion of Cold Season in Calcutta with Elizabeth Kuti, Trilby James and Shelley King

The Chair for this post-show Q&A is Dr Mary Mazzilli from the University of Essex and the participants are the director, cast and musician-performers in the play (left to right: Dr Mary Mazzilli, Shelley King, Trilby James, Elizabeth Kuti, Charlie Price, Danyal Dhondy, Ulrika Krishnamurti, Oscar Batterham and Sohini Alam).

Questions of ‘cultural appropriation’ are at the core of the play and are dramatised through the viewing and making of performances in different contexts within the play itself. The issue of whether or not artists should ‘stay in their lane’ dominates the post-show Q and A, but the discussion also ranges over the personal concerns within the play for the writer and artists involved; the process of the making of the play; the musical choices; the rationale for its setting in Calcutta in 1775, and how this first half will be completed in such a way as to echo Shakespeare’s audacious time-jump, and leap into a new country, and the experiences of a new generation.