Wales
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... |
Choral Pilgrimage 2014, The Sixteen, St John's College Chapel, CambridgeSaturday, 22 March 2014
The core pulse of Tudor polyphony is often deliciously slow. It gets down to a mesmeric pace of about 30 beats per minute. The listener just has to succumb to it, and the experience, even in the virtually unheated Cambridge College chapel where The... Read more... |
The MachineMonday, 17 March 2014
In a Q&A at the London Screenwriters' Festival last year, Welsh writer/director Caradog James and producer John Giwa-Amu already had fans. If that Q&A is any indication, the team at Red & Black Films have a brilliant career ahead of them... Read more... |
Acis and Galatea, Mid Wales Opera, CardiffFriday, 31 January 2014
Handel’s “little opera”, as he called Acis and Galatea when he was composing it in 1718, probably survived while his true, full-length operas vanished from sight precisely because it was little, compact and manageable, like Purcell’s Dido or... Read more... |
The Bridge, Series 2, BBC Four / Hinterland, BBC One WalesSunday, 05 January 2014
Why has Nordic noir been such an addictive novelty? Yes the plots are great, the locations moodily cool, the flat dialogue enigmatic. But in the end it’s all about gender. The detective who is a genius at work but clueless at life – we’ve seen it... Read more... |
Tidy: Ruth Jones gets gongedWednesday, 01 January 2014
The late rise of Ruth Jones, who has been made an MBE, is a blessed relief. According to the prevailing rules of ageism and lookism, Jones should still be plugging away in supporting roles, typically as the large gobby sidekick which for years... Read more... |
