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British playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan is known for turning affairs of state into critically acclaimed box-office hits. He wrote the screenplay of The Queen and collaborated on the script for The Last King of Scotland. Now he has adapted his stage play Frost/Nixon, about the 1977 television interviews between talk-show host David Frost and disgraced former U.S. president Richard M. Nixon, for the big screen.

Morgan received an Oscar nomination for The Queen, a 2006 film starring Helen Mirren that showed the impact of Princess Diana’s death on the British royal family. That same year also saw the release of The Last King of Scotland, an adaptation of Giles Foden's novel about a young Scottish doctor who is drawn into the inner circle of Uganda's brutal former dictactor Idi Amin. Morgan shared a BAFTA Film Award for co-writing that screenplay.

Eleanor Wachtel spoke with Peter Morgan from the CBC studio in London. They discuss what got him thinking about this television spectacle as subject matter for his play and the profound psychological shockwave when a head of state lets down its citizens. An audio excerpt from the Broadway production of Frost/Nixon is also included.

The Canadian Stage production of Frost/Nixon can be seen at the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto until November 8. The film version will be released in December.

First aired October 26, 2008 on Writers & Company. [runs 52:32]

Writers & Company airs on Thursdays at 11:00 p.m. (11:30 in Newfoundland) and on Sunday afternoons (times vary across the country). You can also listen to the show as a podcast.

Coming up
Calling all writers: Win cash and get your work broadcast on CBC and published in En Route magazine. The 2008 CBC Literary Awards competition offers a total of $60,000 for poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction in English and French. The deadline is November 1, 2008. Go to the official site for details.