Following Arts Council of Wales’ decision to stop funding National Theatre Wales last year, Gary Raymond has an idea to support the future of English language theatre in Wales.
Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review, Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review, wherefore art thou, Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review?
I don’t mean this as a rhetorical question. When the Arts Council of Wales announced it was cutting 100% of the funding to the English Language national theatre of Wales (NTW) it rather meekly proposed that the horse we could see behind the cart was in fact an Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review. That was in September 2023. This proposed Review has been less a steady steed and more a rolling tumbleweed. Nothing has happened. Not even a rumour. English language Welsh theatre, if we are to continue throwing metaphors around like a drunk poet, is Juliet, only Romeo isn’t lurking anywhere beneath the veranda, and Juliet returns to bed alone and lies there and dies. Alone.
The suspicion always was that the proposed Review was invented to head off criticisms that the Arts Council was just pulling the plug on NTW and not replacing it with anything...Keep reading on Substack.
Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review, Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review, wherefore art thou, Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review?
I don’t mean this as a rhetorical question. When the Arts Council of Wales announced it was cutting 100% of the funding to the English Language national theatre of Wales (NTW) it rather meekly proposed that the horse we could see behind the cart was in fact an Arts Council-led English Language Theatre Review. That was in September 2023. This proposed Review has been less a steady steed and more a rolling tumbleweed. Nothing has happened. Not even a rumour. English language Welsh theatre, if we are to continue throwing metaphors around like a drunk poet, is Juliet, only Romeo isn’t lurking anywhere beneath the veranda, and Juliet returns to bed alone and lies there and dies. Alone.
The suspicion always was that the proposed Review was invented to head off criticisms that the Arts Council was just pulling the plug on NTW and not replacing it with anything...Keep reading on Substack.