Theatre

Programme Outline

• Frank Vickery discusses his play A Night on the Tiles: the nature of his ‘tragicomedy’, and the special relationship he has with his valley audience.
• Ian Rowlands discusses his monologue Marriage of Convenience: the importance for him of being brought up with the Welsh language, and the power of the live theatre.

We see two scenes from A Night on the Tiles with Frank Vickery performing and directing. He calls it a play about a close-knit valleys family ruled by a strong valleys ‘mam’. He describes how working with women gave him a great access into theatre. Vickery’s aim is, above all, to entertain and make audiences laugh. His plays are like mirrors in which the audience can recognise themselves and laugh at themselves. But he also wants them to cry, and ask questions: ‘Achieving three things is better than achieving one,’ he says. He explains how he creates characters by acting out the parts himself. For him, acting is an essential part of writing and producing. It is striking how close Vickery is to his audience. He has grown up amongst them and clearly writes directly for them. As he says, ‘I am my audience.’

Ian Rowlands talks of growing up as a Welsh speaker in the mainly English-speaking Rhondda valley, which caused people to look upon him as an ‘exotic animal’. The readings in the programme are from his monologue Marriage of Convenience, which is set on the day of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding. In this intense play about growing up as a Welsh speaker, Alex avoids the street party, and goes up the hill to the Crib Goch ridge and and looks down on all the tensions of his life. This is a play which powerfully attacks the prejudices of its audience. Alex is shown growing up and looking to the future. Rowlands compares the theatre with television. He says that theatre is much freer; as it can deal with issues in greater depth, it can be more specific. His plays are plays of ideas, put together with questions but without answers. He also speaks of his fear of death, and his short play The Ogpu Men which deals with the subject. Rowlands writes in English even though he is a Welsh speaker, because he wants to communicate with a wider audience and because it allows him to use the rich idiom of the valleys.