It would be remiss, in a review of the highlights of the Welsh cultural year, not to mention the second coming of Christ. The Times described it as “something remarkable” and the Telegraph called it “touching, transformative and, in its own wayward way, a triumph” – though both bemoaned the obvious logistical problems. Here at Buzz we were lucky enough to cadge an interview with the main man himself. “It’s the most I have been back [to Port Talbot] for a number of years,” he said, all wild hair and unkempt beard. “A lot has changed but the flavour and the feeling of the place and the people is still the same.” His appearance may have belied an increasingly popular international following, but Michael Sheen is one of Wales’ most recognisable modern faces.
Produced in conjunction with National Theatre Wales, The Passion was a remarkable site-specific production which celebrated the people and places of Port Talbot. Held over the Easter weekend, the production re-imagined the classic Easter story against the industrial backdrop of Port Talbot, with Sheen as a Christ-like figure who revolutionises but is ultimately damned by the town. The result was a triumph which brought renewed credibility to street theatre; an art-form previously brought low by drama students shouting Hamlet at each other in railway stations.
The Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival rolled back into town in time for Whit-week. It was for the first year sponsored by the Telegraph rather the Guardian; though according to one girl at the ticket office, the only discernable difference was “we’ve been having more wives ringing up to book tickets on their husbands’ credit cards.” Although it can occasionally strike you as the sort of event that has too many iPhones and not enough revolutionary socialism, you’d have to go a long way to find a festival that so effectively combines a welcoming atmosphere with an assurance of its own diverse capabilities.
Tempting as it is to write some piece that torturously attempts to draw some links between the Valleys and the history of rock music, let’s face it, Merthyr was a bit of a surprise as somewhere to stick a rock festival, wasn’t it? So all the more credit to the organisers of Merthyr Rock for pulling it off and proving this snobby ‘Diff boy wrong. Metalheads from as far afield as Germany booked tickets to see the Blackout rock their hometown, while reggae rock band Skindred and local (slightly tiresome) legends Goldie Lookin Chain added to an amusingly eclectic bill.
The sun shone down on this year’s Green Man Festival. After last year’s literal washout, it wasn’t entirely clear what the organisers had done to appease the weather gods this time, but a sing-a-long screening of The Wicker Man did little to allay suspicions. Swn offered a more urban setting in which to take in the delights of the Welsh music scene, while Brecon Jazz was cool enough and classy enough to make the rest of us wish we’d done something more constructive with our sixth form days. Just think; you could be wearing a trilby un-ironically now if you’d paid attention.
September saw the Rugby World Cup and an unexpected resurgence of Welsh spirit. While England were dressing up in black in the apparent belief that pretending to be New Zealand would make them play like New Zealand, Wales chalked up an impressive 22-10 victory over Ireland, making them the only one of the home nations to make the semi-finals. For one beautiful week you couldn’t move for daffodils, dragons and rugby shirts, and “Men Of Harlech” blasted out of every pub. Alright, so that’s pretty par for the course in Bridgend, but it’s a bit more stirring when it happens outside the Bull Ring. Wales’ eventual defeat at the hands of France (at which point I promptly remembered my great-great-grandfather was French, and went out and bought a baguette and a packet of Gauloises) may have been what sports pundits call “controversial”, but it really would have helped if James Hook could kick straight (an opinion I assure you I would not hesitate to drop were he stood in front of me). Wales’s lacklustre performance against Australia, which ultimately saw them finish fourth in the competition, and France’s surprisingly strong showing against New Zealand in the final certainly showed that the victory of Les Bleus may not have been the fluke we all dismissed it as. Still, the largely uncynical and optimistic reaction of the Welsh fans to their country’s defeat was certainly something to be proud of, and something a fair few football fans could take a lesson from. It was also pleasing that, for the first time I can remember, a victory by one of the other home nations overshadowed an English defeat.
It’s also been an absolutely stonking year for Welsh cinema. We’ve come a long way from a time five or 10 years ago when you barely saw a Welsh actor outside of Belonging. Now, some of the hottest and most promising acting talent on the big and small screens come from the right side of the Seven Estuary; Craig Roberts, Nia Roberts, Matthew Rhys, Iwan Rheon and the aforementioned Michael Sheen to name but a few.
Richard Ayoade’s Submarine brought Joe Dunthorne’s Swansea-based novel with wit and a wistful melancholy to brilliantly depict the torturous hypocrisies of adolescence; while at the same time ruining forever the sweet and innocent view so many of us had of Yasmin Paige from The Sarah Jane Adventures. The difficulty of simply existing was also explored in the film adaption of Owen Sheers’ Resistance. Set in an imagined past in which German forces have invaded and occupied the Grwyne Fawr Valley, it shows off the beauty of the Black Mountains without falling into the trap of depicting an urban-centric picture postcard view of the countryside. The South Wales borderlands are a remote and sometimes brutal place, which, in Sheers’ own words, shouldn’t “look too pretty”. In a time when even French, German and Japanese language films fail to garner much attention, it was encouraging to see the Welsh-language Patagonia gain some praise. Those of us raised in Wales might have entered the screening with justified trepidation – memories of ultra-nationalistic Welsh teaching videos returning to haunt us from our schooldays – but the film’s success lies partly in not overplaying that angle. It’s about heritage and the search for those things which are lost to time. It’s also about the importance of music label co-funding, because there’s no other excuse for Duffy’s piss-poor performance.
Few of us driving into Cardiff’s city centre via North Road will have missed the sparkling Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama redevelopment. Where once there was a humble, unassuming conservatoire, there now stands a behemoth of the arts. A fitting metaphor, perhaps, for the growing confidence of the Welsh artistic scene mentioned earlier. The new development boasts a state of the art theatre, acting and movement studios, and rooms for rehearsals and masterclasses. It’s also energy efficient and environmentally friendly, which is nice: though I have no doubt the alcohol-efficient and hormone friendly bar will be of equal interest to our next generation of aspiring musicians and hopeful thesps.
So that was the year that was. A pretty good one as far as South Wales is concerned, I think you’ll agree. OK, so we didn’t get to host a royal wedding or occupy the NatWest on Queen Street. And as far as I’m aware, Max Boyce’s phone remained decidedly un-hacked. But, we did get to show that we know how to deliver excellence in every area of culture.