“Culture is stagnant, so politics is stuck” – playwright James Graham | Radical Thinking – podcast

Watch the full episode with James Graham here. INK will be released in UK cinemas on 8 January 2027Aditya suggested reading (and watching) list for James Graham:James Graham has written a shaming amount. I’ve listed below three Dear England: about England’s football team Sherwood: mentioned in the conversation, set in the village where James Graham grew up in the shadow of the miners’ strike Quiz: set on the British quiz show, Who wants to be a millionaire, where a contestant wins a million quid On cultural stagnation:A lot of people say culture is stuck, although few sketch out the political consequences of that stagnation as well as James Graham does in our chat.Many also disagree on why:For ‘it was the algorithm that did it’, read Filterworld: How algorithms flattened culture by Kyle ChaykaFor a wider ranging explanation look at ‘Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century’ by W. David MarxThose two are fairly recent. Much earlier and truly magnificent is the much-missed Mark Fisher on what he called the slow cancellation of the futureOn the same theme this essay by Adam Mastroianni is great Photograph: Luke John Smith/The Guardian