Sunday Feature: Wesker at 80

As playwright Arnold Wesker celebrates his 80th birthday, he joins Matthew Sweet to look back on his life and work, which includes groundbreaking plays such as Roots, Chicken Soup with Barley and Shylock. The author of 42 plays has enjoyed a revival of his work over the last year, but for many years he felt himself to be neglected by the British theatrical establishment. Using never-before-seen RSC archive material, Matthew discovers the circumstance behind the controversy in 1972 when Wesker the theatre company sued for refusing to stage his play The Journalists, which it had commissioned. With additional contributions from theatre critic Michael Billington, writer Margaret Drabble, actress Nichola McAuliffe and directors Dominic Cooke and Michael Kustow