We chatted to Christopher about Debate: Baldwin Vs Buckley, playing at Wilton’s Music Hall from the 3rd to the 7th February.
Hi Christopher, how does it feel to be bringing ‘Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley’ back to London?
When we first began work on Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley in 2020, I don’t think any of us imagined we’d still be in conversation with the piece six years later. Being back in London feels both grounding and necessary. The UK was where this debate originally took place, and returning here now—at a moment when the language of “othering” has become increasingly normalised on both sides of the Atlantic—feels urgent. The questions Baldwin and Buckley were grappling with in 1965 haven’t gone away; in many ways, they’ve intensified. Bringing the work back here feels like reopening a conversation that was never resolved, only paused.
How did the idea for the show come about?
The immediate catalyst was the murder of George Floyd. Like many people, my collaborators and I were asking ourselves what it meant—not just to witness that moment—but to respond meaningfully to it. We didn’t want to make a piece that offered easy answers or moral shortcuts. Instead, we were drawn to this historic debate as a way to enter the conversation about race in America with complexity, rigor, and intellectual honesty. Baldwin and Buckley articulated two sharply opposing worldviews, and staging that exchange felt like a way to examine how we arrived at our current moment—and why we still seem so stuck within it.
What have you enjoyed the most about seeing the show develop?
What’s been most compelling is how the piece has evolved alongside the world. It began as an exploration of race in America, but over time it has expanded into a broader meditation on the American Dream, on power, on belonging, and on the fault lines that eventually led to events like January 6th. Both James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. warned, in very different ways, that violence was on the horizon if these tensions went unaddressed. Watching the work deepen as history continued to unfold has been both unsettling and illuminating.
What fascinated you the most about the 1965 original debate?
Honestly, the civility. Baldwin and Buckley are positioned on extreme ends of a political and ideological divide, yet they engage one another seriously, directly, and with respect. They listen. They respond to arguments rather than caricatures. That kind of discourse feels almost unimaginable today. The debate isn’t polite in the sense of being gentle—but it is rigorous and human. Revisiting it now throws into sharp relief just how much we’ve lost in our ability to disagree without dehumanising one another.
For those who are unfamiliar with the debate what can they expect from the show?
Audiences can expect to witness two intellectual heavyweights going head-to-head—brilliant, uncompromising minds articulating fundamentally different visions of society. But beyond that, the piece invites audiences into a shared space of listening. It isn’t about deciding who “wins.” It’s about sitting with difficult ideas, resisting simplification, and remembering that democracy depends not just on speech, but on the willingness to truly hear one another.
Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley will play at the Wilton’s Music Hall from the 3rd to the 7th February.