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Comment by Gemma McAvoy on November 6, 2009 at 4:30

Thankfully the Telegraph piece has more focus and feels better informed...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/6513513/Wales-and-the-we...

Comment by National Theatre Wales on November 6, 2009 at 2:37

Thanks for all the support on the Front Row front. Not the most useful questions in the world, but in a way it was good to be able to take the assumptions on and start to turn them around. Ultimately the work will do that for us.

Comment by Kaite O'Reilly on November 6, 2009 at 2:26

Great day yesterday - great launch - have been getting texts and emails from people elsewhere in the world who joined the livecast saying how exciting the programme is and how incredibly refreshing in its breadth of vision and diversity... So excited theatre makers in South Korea, Singapore, Ireland and Germany all pass on their best for the first year.... A friend who twitters said apparently Lynn Gardner tweeted all her Christmases have come at once - (and not a reference to London)..... Well done John for handling Front Row so well.... Maybe one day they'll actually ask what's occuring, rather than raising out-dated, false representations of a people divided by language... Hey ho....

Comment by Joe Douglas on November 6, 2009 at 1:16

MORE IMPORTANTLY THEY'LL BE PERFORMED IN THEATRE. Loved that, thanks John. Love less the constant presumption that all roads lead to the southbank. Let us combat the nonsense together. Congratulations on the launch, good luck for the rest!

Comment by Gary Owen on November 5, 2009 at 23:46

@James - Three things. In a piece that is barely four minutes long, Lawson manages to

First, introduce by mentioning NTW are doing a piece about a 'suicide cult' in Bridgend - cheers for not sensationalising at all, R4.

Second, he probes John on whether the English National Theatre Wales will be picketed by 'people with placards' for not doing productions in Welsh, despite John explaining there is another body, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, which is the National Theatre in Welsh. It's the endlessly tiresome assumption that people who campaign for the Welsh language must be rabidly AGAINST English and anything being done in English, when in fact they are just FOR the opportunity to do things in Welsh.

Third - he then asks whether NTW's aspiration is to have work on at the Royal National in London. A fair enough question, you might think - how will these new national bodies all co-exist? - but in a four minute interview? No questions about the content of NTW's programme, or about how it will find an audience, or about any of a million things about NTW itself and what it is doing in Wales? No. He just wants to know, would we like to have a play on at the proper National, in London, where the sensible people live and the important things happen.

Obviously what we get from the London-based media seems to me to be metrocentric, ill-informed, patronising tosh. Obviously it does - because just like Lawson, I care most about what happens in my own back yard. But the BBC has the responsibility of being a British broadcaster, and that implies giving a toss about what happens in the whole of Britain, rather than sneering at the provinces from White City.

Comment by Gareth ap Watkins on November 5, 2009 at 22:45

Fantastic!! This has been the best possible launch one could have imagined: a truly inspiring line-up of projects; an innovative on-line approach that means the theatre is truly 'our own'; projects designed to reflect, inspire and merge with the communities of this country. It seems that both the National Theatre of Wales and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru can be beacons of what 'national theatre' really means. We have redefined the concept and left the national theatres of other countries looking like clouded jewels in some 20th century imperial crown...and what's the point of that when you can have theatre instead?

Comment by Sarah Argent on November 5, 2009 at 21:05

WARNING: You may feel vexed for the rest of the day after listening to the Front Row interview on I-player ... but as you say, Gary, - well done John for being so charming and erudite in the face of THOSE questions!

Comment by James Doyle-Roberts on November 5, 2009 at 16:34

What's the Mark Lawson story?
Your's,
Intrigued of Cardiff.

Comment by Nick Dowsett on November 5, 2009 at 12:47

VERY impressed with what I've heard - though I missed the launch. Was very involved with Welsh Theatre in the 80's - So glad to see a truly National Theatre emerging . GOOD LUCK

Comment by Gary Owen on November 5, 2009 at 12:18

And well done for not swearing at Mark Lawson. 'Presumably there'll be people with placards...' Idiot.

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