This weekend I went to Hay Festival to spend my time with luminaries and wordsmiths so smart they made me feel like a sea monkey by comparison. I listened to all manner of people from environmentalists to politicians, some of which you can read about soon on this here blog, but I also caught up with National Theatre Wales who were doing a little session with Michael Billington from the Guardian (‘caught up with’ is actually a bit of an understatement, since I fully managed to blag a lift with a few of them on Sunday – cheers Catrin!).

In the discussion, chaired by a jocund Michael, Lucy Davies gave some good chat about the background to NTW, Marc Rees revealed more about For Mountain, Sand and Sea (the gist of which can be seen in this video) and Mike Pearson gave away a little about The Persians, which I thought I’d share with you if, like me, you can’t get enough this show right now.

We learned a more about the Brecon village in which the play will take place. As Mike has stated before, The Persians is going to happen in a replica German village built for the British army to learn how to fight. It’s still used today to simulate urban conflict, and Mike suggested that some of the buildings are fully formed, whereas others aren’t – perhaps facades or cut-aways? Already a place of rehearsal, Mike said he found it difficult “to resist the temptation to theatricalise it, because it’s so hyper-theatrical in its own way.”

The panel moved onto the topic of the impact of National Theatre Wales on Welsh theatre. Mike made some interesting comments on theatre in Wales before NTW, saying that the lack of a national theatre actually became an enabler for new forms. He said: “There wasn’t a set of rules with which to make theatre. Nobody told us what theatre looked like” – perhaps the reason why Welsh theatre evolved an imagistic, physical theatre tradition.

Most interesting, perhaps, were Michael Billington’s comments on how NTW has altered his perception of theatre in Wales, which he also touches on in this blog post. He said: “I acknowledge that myself and my colleagues have been guilty of an almost blanket ignorance of Welsh theatre, except Theatre Clwyd” – and went on to describe NTW as “a tonic”, igniting his interest in Welsh
theatre.

Looking forward to Tom Stoppard at Hay this weekend - anybody else going?