You could not find a more beautiful location for Gwyl Lenyddiaeth than Dinefwr near Llandeilo. Set in the heartland of myths and legends with white cattle and a very special castle It was a  perfect Midsummer night’s dream weekend.

            Dinefwr’s second literature festival was a feast of all the arts and not at all high brow as some might have construed from the title.

There was a wealth of talent celebrating the lyrical beauty of the Welsh language in poetry , prose , drama  and song. There were musicians , singers , storytellers and comedians from all over the UK. It was a truly bilingual event .

          The schedule was so jammed packed that it was not possible to attend  everything that appealed.

       On Friday  Romy Wood’s excellent creative writing workshop exploring Show and Tell clashed with Jeremy Hardy’s stand up comic show which was thoroughly enjoyed by those who were able to catch it.

     The whole weekend was packed with comedy acts.  Mark Blaney’s intriguingly funny ‘ Be your own life coach with Abba’  was very cleverly presented , while Attila the Stockbroker was bang up to date on lampooning the politics of the day.

Bridget Christie introduced a more serious note into comedy with her take on equality for women and sexism.Her top tip suggested that if you find that  Porn magazines in shops are sited too close to children’s comics you should bin them in the store. This is not theft as you have not taken them out of the shop. It is just ethically relocating them. The audience responded to this suggestion with  rousing cheers and hand clapping.

    There were a number of sessions in the programme addressing inequalities of women , on rape in war , trafficking for prostitution and the denial of choice in education and marriage. Charlotte Church in conversation with the feminist Kat Banyard described how the music industry sexualised young women and gave them no control over their image. It was all about dressing and looking sexy.

             Charlotte has now taken new directions with her music. Her set closed the show on Friday night and it didn’t disappoint. While she has shed her ‘ Voice of an angel ’ and  ‘Rock chick’  image her voice is as powerful , pure and pleasing as ever. It was an exhilarating end to the first day.

                  Music featured prominently over the weekend. There was so much to hear in both English and Welsh. There was the haunting voice Of Angharad van Rijswijk from the talented critically acclaimed bilingual duo ‘Trwbador’   and the beautiful , lyrical harmonising of ‘ Plu’ ,three siblings from North Wales. Very restful on a warm Summer’s afternoon.

               Carmarthenshire born Cate le Bon gave us all a great rock experience She was very popular and played to great applause.

  Closing the events on Saturday was the versatile Adrian Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds. Their folky interpretation of all the popular punk songs of the 70’s and 80’s went down a storm and again the audience dispersed with a satisfying feel good factor.

 As for the literature events , again, there were so many it was frustrating not being able to catch them all.  Best selling author Helen Dunmore had to be abandoned if  a taster workshop on creative writing from Ty Newydd was to be attended. Other creative writing and poetry workshops were run by the open university and Trinity St David.

                  Some of the Welsh programmes provided an excellent simultaneous translation allowing non Welsh speakers to enjoy the beauty of the language.

        Spanning the divide is the worldwide success of the S4C drama ‘Hinterland’ . This popular moody detective series is shot in both English and Welsh, and also contains subtitles in parts where only Welsh with suffice. The programme has been picked up by Netflix in America. Such is the popularity of subtitles following on from all those Nordic dramas that some countries have chosen to show the programme in Welsh with English subtitles.

                  In his centenary year , Dylan Thomas , of course was not forgotten and neither was his shed. Or rather a replica of his shed where people could compose new words for a new dictionary.

  David Boucher, Mike Jones and Jeff Towns celebrated his work and author Rob Gittins introduced his new novel on the last days of Dylan Thomas, while  ‘ Dylan Live’  presented an unusual take on his New york days in the form of Jazz,   beat poetry,  hip hop , prose and film.

   Gillian Clarke , National poet of Wales also attended the festival and read from her poetry collection ‘Ice’.  while Gruff Rhys closed the weekend with his  ‘American Interior’ project on the 18th century  adventurer John Evans. music , songwriting , storytelling and film . A microcosm of the weekend all rolled into one. It was a very fitting end to the festival.

              Children too, attended the event and were well catered for on Saturday and Sunday.

                      Brave pirate Ben Dent from S4C ‘ Cyw’  was present to play games for all excepts those in prams. Princess Evie created adventures in the castle grounds and Welsh wizards and witches were invited to meet Angharad Tomos creator of Gwlad y Rwla.

          And the fun didn’t stop there.New superheroes could be created in comic strip  form with cartoonist Huw Aaron , while Wimpy kids were entertained in a show hosted by Alistair Watson. And that was all before the sabre toothed tiger was let loose by Dan Antony and Huw Aaron!

   Even the local school children performed some of their creative writing at Dinefwr castle , while brave children could be chilled by ghost stories in the cellar with Mair Thomas Ifans.

If that wasn’t enough , there were also nature trails , print workshops and last but not least Charlie Stinky Socks. The children seemed to be having a great time.

The horizon courtyard was a relaxing place to sit and eat some of the excellent Wales sourced food including award winning pies , delicious sea food such as crab and lobsters , oven baked pizzas and tapas.

    Here also you could listen to some great music and some moving poetry from members of the Swansea Bay Asylum Seekers Support group in ‘Are you happy with that’.

         Poetry in both Welsh and English was well represented with presentations by Myrddin ap Dafydd and Twm Morris in Welsh about the Great war while late night poets performed in the dining room and Rhian Edwards author of ‘Clueless Dogs’ recited some of her poems.

 All in all this was a most enriching and enjoyable weekend with something for everybody interested in any of the arts. The only disappointment was that it was not possible to see everything as the line up was so full and action packed, but you can’t complain about that !

Get your bags packed and make sure you don’t miss the next festival because it was absolutely fantastic!

                                               Patricia Roper