In the Vox podcast In a Nutshell, hosts Jara Majerus and Antonia Leise take a deep dive into the university's most interesting, strange, and exciting research. Every two weeks, they invite Radboud researchers to talk about their favourite topics – explained in bite-sized episodes. In today's episode, Antonia explores how theatre brings political topics on stage.

How political is theatre? What do plays have to do with Brexit? And how has theatre shaped (and commented on) political developments in the past?

In this episode of In a Nutshell, Antonia and guest Ruud van den Beuken explore how political topics can be explored in theatre – and ask the question whether theatre is always the best way to address certain political issues, especially when it comes to class in Britain.

Ruud van den Beuken is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts. His own theatre research has started with a course on Samuel Beckett and Irish theatre, which was also the topic of his PhD research. Amongst other things, Ruud is researching Brexit theatre, national identity formation (also through theatre) and postcolonial cultural memory.

Would you like to learn more about the politics of theatre? Then follow Ruud’s advise and watch some theatre plays yourself. Including Sadettin Kirmiziyuz’s Citzen K, available on the NPO streaming service.

This episode is part of a two-part series on politics and theatre. Also tune in for the second episode, which explores AIDS theatre.