Winners and losers, movers and shakers

Iwan Rheon (Moritz) Aneurin Barnard (Melchior) and Charlotte Wakefield (Wendla) from Spring Awakening. Photo credit: Helen Maybanks

THE start of spring is the time brings our annual acting awards ceremonies to a close, having charged through the Oscars, the BAFTAS and the Olivier Awards.

While Carey Mulligan didn’t quite bag an Oscar, Aneurin Barnard and Iwan Rheon managed a Welsh double at this year’s Olivier Awards. Barnard won the Best Actor award for his performance in a musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s coming-of-age play Spring Awakening. His co-star Rheon won the Best Supporting Actor in the same production. Barnard beat Rowan Atkinson, nominated for his role as Fagin in Oliver, to the top accolade. Rheon was up against two veterans: Maureen Lipman, who gave a superb performance in Trevor Nunn’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music; and Sheila Hancock, for her performance in Sister Act.

Barnard, a graduate of Royal Welsh college of Music and Drama, can be seen in the film Ironclad later this year. Filmed at the Dragon Studios outside Bridgend, the film also stars Paul Giamatti, Sir Derek Jacobi and Welsh actor Rhys Parry Jones.

LAMDA-trained Rheon started his acting career competing at the National Eisteddfod before securing a role in the long-running Welsh-language soap, Pobol y Cwm. Spring Awakening is his professional stage debut . He will be on stage at the New Theatre in Cardiff in May as he joins National Theatre Wales in its premiere of a new John Osborne play The Devil Inside Him.

Both Barnard and Rheon have achieved remarkable success early in their careers. Both are still in their early twenties, and should become highly sought after by producers and casting agents. While it’s important that a new wave of talented Welsh – and Welsh-speaking – actors are recognised, it’s vital that Rheon and Barnard are given time and the opportunities to deepen their acting skills both on the London stage, but – crucially – on the Welsh stage. With two National Theatres in Wales now, let’s hope that the right platform exists for both Barnard and Rheon to provide theatre audiences in Wales with award-winning performances in their own back yard.

And talking of our National Theatre, it’s first production, A Good night in the Valleys, has opened and is now touring in venues across South Wales. It is early days yet but it has received enthusiastic reviews both in Wales the UK media, applauding its high production values and quality acting. While this is good news, the Valleys project and the next performance in Swansea’s library both feel a bit like the warm-up acts. The real test will be the more ambitious premiere at the new Theatre in Cardiff of John Osborne’s hitherto unseen play, The Devil Inside Him.

The test facing Theatr Genedlaethol is quite different. Its performance of Meic Povey’s play Tyner yw’r Lleuad Heno was not a critical success. Since then, Y Gofalwr, a translation of Pinter’s The Birthday Party, has just completed its tour. This was Cefin Roberts’s swansong. He announced during the run that he was leaving his post as the company’s first artistic director. It was, he said, entirely his own decision and the time was right to leave after seven years at the helm. Theatr Genedlaethol has been accused of lacking vision and of playing safe in staging performances which reflect Cefin’s background with Bara Caws and Glanaethwy. The search is now on for a replacement and Theatr Genedlaethol Board needs to be bold and brave in its search for Cefin’s replacement. It is a pivotal appointment and an exciting opportunity for the company. It needs someone who has vision as well as creative ability, who can develop its audience and draw Welsh speakers and learners to its performances, and generally wake up Welsh-language theatre. Ed Thomas, the playwright and director, managed to shake up Welsh theatre a decade ago, so what might he be up to after the current series of Caerdydd finishes?

It’s very much a time for situations vacant in the cultural world. The top jobs at two other Welsh institutions could be filled shortly. The closing date for the post of editor of Radio Wales has recently passed and Wales Millennium Centre is in the process of appointing its new chief executive.

In broadcasting, John Walter Jones has been re-appointed by the DCMS to chair the S4C Authority, the channel’s governing body. Wales is the first nation in the UK to be fully digital, completing the process at the end of March. Digital switchover presented S4C with its own unique challenges. The threat that non-Welsh viewers would desert the channel was enough of a worry for S4C to issue a statement saying that no viewers had been lost as a result of the switchover process.

What seemed a good news story soon turned sour as leaked BARB figures showed that some of S4C’s programmes had in effect been watched by ‘nobody’. Former Tory minister Rod Richards voiced his concerns in the media about lack of viewers for the station, suggesting that millions of pounds could be saved by transferring Welsh-language programming to the BBC. John Walter Jones responded by declaring that the figures were given without context. They didn’t explain that most of the programmes measured were children’s programming, which are included in BARB’s figures. He also questioned the motives behind releasing the figures, which are only available to the broadcasters themselves. S4C has a role to play in the broadcasting ecology and in the development of the language now that it is ‘entirely a Welsh-language channel’. By the way, Shameless was the last English-language programme broadcast on analogue S4C. Defiant comment from Parc Ty Glas, or innocent pub quiz information?

And finally in this spring round-up, a little portent of what there may be to come. Admiral is Wales’s leading home-grown insurance company. On the eve of Wales’s game against Italy in the Six Nations Championship, it announced a tie-up with the Welsh Rugby Union to provide the team with a shirt sponsorship deal. A few days later and Admiral unveiled a three-year sponsorship deal with the newly revamped Chapter Arts Centre. The deal includes a cash injection and workshops for Admiral’s staff at Chapter.

As we approach the General Election with talks of savage cuts, the government of the day will have to reduce expenditure, including the block grant the Welsh Government receives from the Treasury. While education and health budgets are likely to be maintained under Carwyn Jones’s administration, there are concerns that the arts won’t be given such a reprieve. Could we see more examples of private money in the arts after May? And, if so, what level of influence will that include? Time will tell. All we need now is for the General Election to be called.