theatre
In praise of Maesteg
The last deep coal mine in the Llynfi valley, St John’s Colliery, just east of Maesteg, closed in 1985, at the end of Margaret Thatcher’s war against the miners. At its peak it employed nearly 1,500 men. There’s been no other source of work of comparable size in the area since – the local paper […]
Iliad
National Theatre Wales’s recent production of the Iliad in Ffwrnes, Llanelli raises interesting questions about dramatising canonical texts not intended for drama. The Greeks are hot on the British stage at the moment. Two versions of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy appeared in London this year, and Euripides is in vogue too, with productions of Medea and […]
‘Caitlin’
Wrth i ‘flwyddyn Dylan’ ddirwyn i ben – ar ôl misoedd o ddathliadau dwys sy wedi ymylu ar fod yn ‘Dylanolatri’ – mae’n briodol iawn bod peth sylw yn cael ei roi i’w wraig Caitlin. Nos Fawrth yn Volcano yn Abertawe fe welais berfformiad byw, rhyw awr o hyd, o’r enw ‘Caitlin’, sy’n dramateiddio’r berthynas […]
National Theatre Wales’s ‘Mametz’: a review
As part of Wales’s commemoration of the First World War, and almost exactly two years ahead of the centenary of the battle, National Theatre Wales has ‘staged’ a version of the fierce struggle for possession of Mametz Wood. This battle was fought over six days in July 1916 between largely Welsh volunteer soldiers and highly […]