Campaigns

Test: not writing

Re-launch of the one-man Welsh National Theatre of Dedwydd Jones:

The English have a national theatre, (South Bank, Shakespeare), the Irish have one (the Abbey, WB Yeats , Lady Gregory, Miss Horniman), the Northern Irish have one (Belfast Arts Theatre, Hubert and Dorothy Wilmot), the Scots have one (the Citizen’s Theatre, James Bridie; and the new peripatetic National Theatre of Scotland) and now the Welsh, at last, have one - the Welsh National Theatre of Dedwydd Jones! Although it is still a one-man show, it is the only one from Wales, the fifth and last national theatre of these islands. It is now being re-born on a remarkable raft of fifty-six plays, all by a single author. A Welsh National Theatre of Dedwydd Jones? Read the plays and decide for yourselves!

A Welsh National Theatre, did you say?

Throughout his writing career Dedwydd Jones has always called for the establishment of a Welsh national theatre, with its home theatre in Wales. In an attempt to further this aim Dedwydd Jones has been founder-member of various organizations to encourage the writing of Welsh drama: the Guild of Anglo-Welsh writers (with poet Bryn Griffiths, the late John Tripp, London); the Welsh Artists’ Workshop (with the late Rae Smith, Phillip Madoc, Wales); Welsh Dramatists’ Network (with Graham Jones, Dannie Abse, Wales.)

To charter the uneven course of Welsh drama, Dedwydd Jones has also written a series of black books on the Welsh theatre, paying particular attention to the ghastly role played by the Welsh Arts Council. The Black Books parody the waste and chaos of the Welsh theatre arts, from the fifties to the inception of the Welsh Arts Council in 1968/9, and from that awful moment, up to the millennium, and after that, of course, the deluge.

Limited back numbers of the Black Books are available, from the author:

Vol 1: out of print

Vol II (with illustrations) a short history of Theatre in Wales, with George Bernard Shaw’s famous letter on a Welsh national theatre:

Volumes III, IV and V cover the period 1980-2000.

Campaign on the Welsh National Theatre here (PDF)