May Media Release

Release Date: Thursday 5th May 2010

National Theatre Wales announces further details of inaugural season:
• Collaborations with theatre companies Told by an Idiot and WILDWORKS
• Platform event at Hay-on-Wye Festival
• Sell-out runs of first two shows
• Newly discovered John Osborne play opens tonight

National Theatre Wales today announced more details of its inaugural 2010/11 season. Britain’s newest national theatre company will collaborate with innovative theatre makers Told by an Idiot on the stage adaptation of Gwyn Thomas’ The Dark Philosophers, directed by Told by an Idiot’s Co-Artistic Director, Paul Hunter, at Riverfront Theatre, Newport, in November 2010, and acclaimed Landscape Theatre company WILDWORKS will join forces with Michael Sheen and Owen Sheers in creating Passion in Port Talbot in April 2011.
NTW will also be the subject of a platform event at the Hay Festival on 30 May 2010, hosted by the Chief Theatre Critic of The Guardian, Michael Billington, who will be discussing NTW’s work and ambitions with some of the people behind its productions: Lucy Davies, (producer, NTW), Mike Pearson (director, The Persians) and Marc Rees (artistic director, For Mountain, Sand and Sea).
In addition, NTW confirmed that its first two shows, A Good Night Out In The Valleys, and Shelf Life, had enjoyed sell-out runs.
NTW’s latest production, The Devil Inside Him by John Osborne, opens tonight (6 May) at the New Theatre, Cardiff (press night 11 May).
Told by an Idiot has established an international reputation for its startlingly original productions. The company produces work that is moving, comic and utterly theatrical and revels in a style of performance that is larger than life. Recent productions include: The Comedy of Errors (RSC), Michel Faber’s The Fahrenheit Twins (Drum Theatre Plymouth, Barbican and Unity Theatre) Beauty and the Beast (Lyric Hammersmith and Warwick Arts Centre), Casanova (a collaboration with poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and co-produced with West Yorkshire Playhouse and Lyric Hammersmith) and Philip Pullman’s The Firework-maker’s Daughter (Sheffield Crucible).
Taking as its inspiration the ink-black comic tales of Gwyn Thomas, the great Welsh storyteller and dark, hilarious chronicler of the Valleys, The Dark Philosophers is a funny, violent, passionate and anarchic depiction of a community teetering on the brink of humanity.
WILDWORKS produces unique landscape theatre in challenging places and with extraordinary communities. Their productions have been sited in old quarries, derelict mines, working fishing quays, abandoned department stores, a Napoleonic citadel and the Green Line in Cyprus. The strength of their work lies in the fusion of a strong sense of place, the power of people and distinct theatrical imagination.
For Passion, one of Port Talbot’s most famous sons, Michael Sheen, returns to his home town to revive a lost tradition — the Port Talbot community Passion play, which used to be staged every year in the town until 1998. Working with leading Welsh author and poet Owen Sheers, and supported by professional actors, international designers and extraordinary musicians, Michael will guide residents and visitors in Port Talbot on a journey of rediscovery.
Described by Bill Clinton as “the Woodstock of the mind”, the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Wales from 26 May to 5 June 2010.
ENDS

Notes to editors
The establishment of an English language national theatre company for Wales was a commitment in the Welsh Assembly Government's One Wales programme. The Welsh Assembly Government and The Arts Council of Wales are supporting National Theatre Wales with funding of £3 million over three years.
National Theatre Wales creates invigorating theatre in the English language, rooted in Wales, with an international reach.
For information on National Theatre Wales’ shows visit: nationaltheatrewales.org
For more information about National Theatre Wales, or any of its forthcoming shows, contact Catrin Rogers, Media Officer on 07540 686 725 / 029 2035 3077 / catrinrogers@nationaltheatrewales.org