Wales
10 Questions for Musician Gruff RhysSaturday, 20 September 2014
It hardly sounds like the springboard for an album, a film, a book and an app. In the 1780s a young Welsh explorer called John Evans journeyed across the unmapped North American continent in search of a tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans. His... Read more... |
PrideThursday, 11 September 2014
Buried deep in the final credits for theatre director Matthew Warchus's second feature film, Pride, is a shout-out to his late father for teaching his son the twin virtues of compassion and comedy. Both those qualities, as it happens, are on... Read more... |
CD: Catfish and the Bottlemen - The BalconyWednesday, 10 September 2014
The story is a familiar one: four lads rattling through three-minute garage rock songs full of sweary, lovelorn couplets. With the exception of the name (a tribute, apparently, to a busker that frontman Van McCann met as a child) there’s little to... Read more... |
Mametz, National Theatre WalesSaturday, 28 June 2014
Mametz Wood was the objective of the 38th Welsh Division during the First Battle of the Somme in World War One. Numerous failed attempts to capture the wood were made, during which much Welsh blood was spilt. Mametz therefore holds a great deal of... Read more... |
10 Questions for Artistic Director John McGrathTuesday, 24 June 2014
As of next year, John McGrath will be the most senior artistic director of a national company in the land. Rufus Norris will be freshly installed at the National Theatre of Great Britain on the Southbank. Laurie Sansom started at the National... Read more... |
Dylan Thomas: A Poet in New York, BBC TwoMonday, 19 May 2014
Swansea's much-mythologised son would have been 100 in October this year, but he died in New York in 1953, from a list of medical problems exacerbated by his colossal intake of alcohol. Thomas's doomed, chaotic trajectory could almost qualify as the... Read more... |
Raw Material: Llareggub Revisited, National Theatre WalesMonday, 05 May 2014
Dylan Thomas’ iconic play Under Milk Wood boasts a host of colourful characters. From the blind sea Captain Cat to the loveable Polly Garter washing the steps of the welfare hall, the play is a play for voices; a play for characters. Thomas, born in... Read more... |
Hinterland, BBC Four / Rev, Series 3 Finale, BBC TwoTuesday, 29 April 2014
We have all learned to genuflect at the altar of Nordic noir in recent years – see The Tunnel, the Anglo-French remake of The Bridge, and the American Killing, not to mention the news that Borgen creator Adam Price and Michael House of Cards Dobbs... Read more... |
Under Milk Wood, York Theatre RoyalThursday, 24 April 2014
A spiralling stage, horned with two raised prongs. A circular display, mounted on the back wall, which presents the buildings and coastline of a seaside town from a bird’s eye view. Subtle blues, yellows and reds that light up the stage to reflect... Read more... |
Maudie's Rooms, Bute Street, Cardiff BayMonday, 14 April 2014
Cardiff Bay’s Bute Street is home to many imposing buildings, a large number of which are derelict. They have the potential to become something more than they currently are. They can be revived, and that’s what Louise Osborn has done by mounting her... Read more... |
Barry is ready for her close-upWednesday, 02 April 2014
The idea for Day to Go – the show takes its name from a bus ticket – sprang from my own bus journeys around Barry and from a desire to make a piece of theatre specific and relevant to the town. I persuaded a local company to lend me a bus for a few... Read more... |
Listed: Celebrating Dylan ThomasSunday, 30 March 2014
It won’t have escaped the attention of anyone with an ear for poetry that Dylan Thomas turns 100 this year. He was born in a suburban house on a hill overlooking Swansea Bay a few months after the outbreak of war, and by his early 20s had been... Read more... |
