³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

On St Andrew's Day I wonder how tempted Alex Salmond will be to raise some questions -perhaps answer a few - about his future plans for an independent Scotland?

How soon after that would the UK Government be obliged to offer their own answers to come questions raised by the Calman Commission earlier this year. Will they take the same opportunity to respond to the Holtham Commission?

It's questions, questions, question these days. Here are a few more for you:

Does the majority of the population of Wales understand the devolution settlement?

No.

To what extent do they need to understand it? To what extent does it matter if their understanding is scant?

Not just debatable but about to be hotly debated when the All Wales Convention report their own findings on November 18th, the day - incidentally - of the Queen's Speech.

How much do people who live in the UK but not in Wales understand about day to day life here? Do they know what would be different for their families if their company relocated here for instance? Do they know how the health service differs, how the education offered to their children would be different?

What do they think it feels like to live in a bilingual country?

Listening to yesterday's edition of Radio 4's Front Row with Mark Lawson makes you wonder.

This week we learned what the brand new will look like. Its Artistic Director, John E McGrath was invited onto the programme to talk about it. Good news you say, promoting understanding of what goes on here beyond Wales etc The conversation moved on to the National Theatre's peripatetic nature and a comparison made with the National Theatre in Scotland. This is how it went:

LAWSON: But far more than it arises perhaps in Scotland, you have the language question, which is whether the plays should be performed in English or in Welsh how have you resolved that one?

MCGRATH: Well we've come up with a canny solution for that in Wales, which is to create two theatre companies, National Theatre Wales and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Theatr Genedlaethol has been going for a few years now, so that's really opened a space up for an English language theatre.

LAWSON: So all your plays will be performed in English?

MCGRATH: They'll be performed in English but more important than that they'll be performed in theatre.

LAWSON: I understand but we know that this is a big political issue in Wales. You are confident that you won't have people standing outside the theatre with placards which many of your actors and writers won't be able to read, protesting about the fact that it's all in English?

MCGRATH: There's been absolutely nothing but enthusiasm for the project in Wales and the Welsh speaking community's been a huge part of the support. It's an issue I think for people in England, it's not an issue for people in Wales. Here we're talking about a very confident country that has increasingly got its own government and wants to speak to the world.

There are plenty of questions in the wind these days about the quality of theatre provision in Wales, be it in English or in Welsh. The Culture Minister has been posing a few questions of his own this week and given he's the man holding the purse strings, ears in theatre land will prick up and listen.

But promoting understanding of where we're at in Wales? Are there really intelligent, erudite cultural commentators in England who believe there would be noisy protests outside national theatre productions in Wales, simply because they're put on in English?

Apparently so. There wouldn't of course but to what extent does it matter that some people think there would? Quite a lot, I'd say.

If you're interested, listen back to the interview here.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?