Tagged with: arts and culture
Posts (359)
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Owen Sheers pens film noir thriller inspired by Dylan Thomas
Laura Chamberlain
A film noir thriller by Welsh writer Owen Sheers, which takes its inspiration from Dylan Thomas' final visit to America in 1953 before his death, has been snapped up by a UK production company. Sheers' screenplay, entitled A Visit To America, has been acquired by the London and west Wales base...
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Literature festivals in Wales this weekend
Laura Chamberlain
Love literature? Love summer festivals? Well you're in for a treat this weekend as three different literary events are taking place in Wales. First up is the inaugural Dinefwr Literary Festival that takes place across the weekend in the picturesque setting of the National Trust's Dinefwr Park and Castle in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire. The festival runs from Friday 29 June to Sunday 1 July. Highlights will include performances by writers Gillian Clarke, Sir Andrew Motion, Howard Marks, Julian Cope and previous Wales Book of the Year winners Deborah Kay Davies, Philip Gross and John Harrison. Newton House at Dinefwr. Image courtesy of the National Trust Photo Library/David Norton Other authors appearing include Joe Dunthorne, Pascale Petit, Alastair Reynolds, Paul Henry, Robert Minhinnick, Wendy Cope, Catherine Fisher and Horatio Clare among many others. There's a host of musical events happening too, with Gruff Rhys, Emmy The Great, Georgia Ruth, Ghostpoet, Steve Eaves and Jodie Marie all on the line-up. Weekend and day passes are available - for more information see dinefwrliteraturefestival.co.uk. Meanwhile, the Beyond the Border storytelling festival returns to St Donat's Castle this weekend. The festival, which has an international feel with participants from across the globe, carries on the oral tradition that has been well versed in Wales over the centuries. Beyond The Border is Wales' leading international festival of storytelling. The biennial storytelling festival, which began in 1993, celebrates the worlds of myth, legend and folktales with performances by storytellers, musicians, writers and artists from Wales and the world. There are a number of themes running at this year's festival in addition to the individual artist performances. These include celebrating 200 years of Grimm's Fairy Tales and honouring the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Plus there's a look at journeys along the Silk Road and an exploration of the myths and legends of Celtic Britain. Beyond the Border in 2010. Photo: James Mendelssohn The art of storytelling is not a new one in Wales as the country has enjoyed a long history with the tradition: it was known as the cyfarwyddyd in medieval Wales. Wales can also boast an impressive literary history, with examples of texts dating back to the sixth century: browse articles on early Welsh literature on the 成人论坛 Wales Arts website. Beyond the Border runs from Friday 29 June until Sunday 1 July. For the full line-up and ticket information visit beyondtheborder.com. Finally, Busk on the Usk is a one day festival on Saturday taking place at the Riverfront Theatre and the City Campus of the University of Wales, Newport. It is the Welsh Contemporary Music contribution to the London 2012 Festival, but the festival also has a number of discussions and literary readings. The team behind the Laugharne Weekend have helped to organise the literary side of the festival with authors including Pauline Black, Malcolm Pryce and musician, artist and writer Jon Langford on the line-up. All the events at Busk on the Usk are free but ticketed, so for more information and the full line-up visit buskwales.co.uk.
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The Exhibitionists and the National Museum Wales
成人论坛 Wales Arts
A new series where the National Museum Wales challenges the public to create their own exhibition from its treasures begins tonight at 10pm on 成人论坛 Two Wales. David Anderson, director general at the museum, talks about the challenges the museum faced in taking part in the series, and what they ...
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National Library prepares for Christopher Williams retrospective
Laura Chamberlain
Staff at the National Library of Wales are gearing up for a major new retrospective of the works of Maesteg-born artist Christopher Williams. The retrospective, which will feature around 150 paintings by the artist, is currently being set up at the Aberystwyth library ahead of the opening in July. Inspecting a painting by Williams Removing one of Williams' pieces from Maesteg Town Hall The curation of such a large exhibition sounds wonderfully artistic and creative doesn't it? Yet there's some manual labour involved in the process too, if these pictures sent by the team at the National Library are anything to go by. Williams is perhaps best known for his imposing classical subjects, including The Awakening of Wales and his large scale classical interpretations of the Mabinogion. He was also a notable portrait painter and was commissioned to paint the portraits of important figures of the day, such as David Lloyd George, and commemorative paintings such as the Investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in 1911. This retrospective will also show more the spontaneous paintings that Williams made of the Welsh coast, some of which have never been seen, which give an insight into the artist's personality and his love of Wales. Removing one of Williams' pieces from Maesteg Town Council Williams gifted many of his paintings to his home town, so the library has been busy transporting many of the paintings from Maesteg in readiness for the exhibition. Pieces from private and public collections have also been gathered for the retrospective. The sheer size of some of the paintings going on show make manoeuvring them into position a little tricky: when was the last time you had to erect a scaffold to remove a painting from the wall in your front room? The exhibition, Christopher Williams 1873-1934: A Retrospective, will run from 7 July until 22 September 2012 and will be officially opened by artist and former MP Kim Howells on Saturday 14 July. Howells presented the 2011 成人论坛 Wales series Framing Wales, which featured Williams and his works. Watch this clip from the series, in which he talks to Robert Meyrick, head of Aberystwyth School of Art, about the artist. Related links Phil Carradice on Christopher Williams Profile on 成人论坛 Wales Arts National Library of Wales website
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Fear and loathing in the Green Room
Phil Rickman
Ten days at the Hay Festival can be like living in that old TV series where everybody in the street is famous. After a while you become almost celeb-blind. If not exactly celeb-deaf. The Artists' Green Room is a tent with sofas and a garden outside, where nobody seems to pay for a drink. I wa...
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Eighty thousand gather for jubilee celebrations... at Hay
Phil Rickman
So here I am at the Hay Festival, pale, blinking and practically word-blind. One of an estimated 80,000 people expected to hit this massive site (on the Brecon Road, just past the fire station, if you haven't been before) by Sunday night. It's the 25th festival - yes, another jubilee - and...
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New 成人论坛 Cymru Wales arts series The Exhibitionists
成人论坛 Wales Arts
What happens when a national museum opens its stores of treasures to members of the public and challenges them to curate their own art exhibition for the very first time? A new 成人论坛 Cymru Wales programme reveals exactly what as it collaborates with Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales in a ...
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Full line-up announced for Dinefwr Literature Festival
Joe Goodden
Senior web producer, 成人论坛 Wales
The line-up for next month's Dinefwr Literature Festival has been announced, with National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke opening the first day. More than 100 literature, music, arts and comedy events will take place at the bilingual festival, which runs from Friday 29 June to Sunday 1 July at Dinefwr Park and Castle in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire. Among the spoken-word guests will be Andrew Motion, Tim Burgess, Howard Marks, Jasper Fforde, Robert Minhinnick and Wendy Cope. Comedy will be provided by John Hegley, Simon Munnery, Josie Long, Tom Wrigglesworth and others, while music performers will include Julian Cope, Gruff Rhys, Georgia Ruth, Ghostpoet and Emmy The Great. Lleucu Siencyn, one of the festival's directors, said: "This is a festival with everybody in mind - families, music fans, readers, writers and those who love the great outdoors." Weekend, day and camping tickets are available, with discounts for National Trust and Literature Wales members.
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Remembering Hugh Griffith, 100 years on
Laura Chamberlain
Today, 30 May, marks what would have been the 100th birthday of one of Wales' Oscar-winning actors, Hugh Griffith. Griffith scooped the gong in 1960 for best actor in a supporting role, as he played Sheik Ilderim in Ben-Hur alongside Charlton Heston. He beat fellow actors Arthur O'Connell and George C Scott, both nominated for Anatomy Of A Murder, Robert Vaughn (The Young Philadelphians) and Ed Wynn, for his role in The Diary Of Anne Frank, to take the award. Hugh Griffith in costume for the 成人论坛 Playhouse production of The Joke in 1974 Born in Marianglas in Anglesey in 1912, Griffith was awarded a scholarship to RADA and left his career in banking to enter the acting profession. However, he had to put his career on hold as with the outbreak of World War Two he enlisted in the British army and served in India and Burma. Griffith's film career took off in the late 1940s. He broke into the Hollywood film industry in the 1950s and went on to star with some of the biggest names in the business. He appeared with Laurence Olivier in The Beggar's Opera (1953), Dirk Bogarde in The Sleeping Tiger (1954) plus Marlon Brando and Richard Harris in Mutiny On The Bounty (1962) . Griffith received another Oscar nomination in the category of best supporting actor for 1963 blockbuster Tom Jones as well as a Bafta nomination for best British actor and a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. All three awards sadly proved elusive. Kenneth Griffith, Aubrey Woods, Hugh Griffith and Cyril Cusack in the 1971 成人论坛 drama Clochemerle The late film critic and historian Dave Berry said of Griffith: Griffith had long been a stage and TV favourite, since at least 1951 when in Mario Zampi's comedy Laughter in Paradise he played a dying eccentric who, for one last jape, forces relatives into acts alien to their natures to secure a share of his legacy. Never has a bedridden incipient corpse rolled his eyes more to convey sheer devilry, and rarely has so little screen time been put to such use by a class performer. The Welsh actor was always in his roistering element in comedies bursting with life, and many enjoyed the burlesque relish of his Oscar-nominated supporting role as the eccentric Squire Western in Tony Richardson's ebullient Tom Jones (1963), from Henry Fielding's classic. Griffith conveys superbly the cant, hypocrisy and devil-may-care qualities of a man delighting in getting his own way, but gives Tom Jones (Albert Finney) unforgettably uncomfortable moments in the hero's sexual odyssey. Further success in the 1960s followed with notable roles in How To Steal A Million (1966) with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole and the musical adaptation of Oliver! (1968) starring Oliver Reed and Harry Secombe. Aside from Ben-Hur, Griffith is perhaps most associated with the film comedy Grand Slam. It follows a group of Paris-bound Welsh rugby fans making the trip across the Channel to watch the climactic match in the Five Nations championship in the late 1970s. He played the undertaker Caradog Lloyd-Evans alongside Windsor Davies and Dewi Morris. It was a huge hit, and is still popular with Welsh rugby fans today. Griffith died of a heart attack in 1980, aged 67. Related links 成人论坛 Wales Arts: Top 10 Welsh actors article by Dave Berry Hugh Griffith on the Internet Movie Database website Profile on the BFI Screen Online website
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Rolf Harris collects Bafta Fellowship
Laura Chamberlain
Artist and presenter Rolf Harris was awarded a prestigious Bafta Fellowship at last night's awards ceremony for his "outstanding and exceptional contribution to television". Harris, whose grandparents hailed from Merthyr Tydfil, told 成人论坛 News: "It's unbelievable for a start, it's very humblin...
