Wales Arts Review Weekly Update (13/05/2023)
In conversation with Trezza Azzopardi, Adele Thomas on directing opera, social politics in theatre from Wales and a Dr Who-themed cabaret, in our free weekly roundup.
Trezza Azzopardi in Conversation
In the latest of our new long-form interviews with the leading voices of Welsh culture exclusively available to our paid subscribers from tomorrow, we talk to the Booker-nominated novelist about fiction and fable.
Cardiff-born Trezza Azzopardi’s debut novel, The Hiding Place, was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2000 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her subsequent three novels have marked her out as one of the finest novelists of her generation. Her Welsh-English-Maltese roots inform her fiction of familial dramas. For many years now, Trezza has taught on the famous Creative Writing course at UEA. Gary Raymond caught up with her for a wide-ranging discussion on the craft of writing, the influences of childhood, and the minefield of teaching students in the age of trigger-warnings.
Top Picks
This summer Adele Thomas gets the chance to show the world that she belongs in the opera house. Linda Christmas spoke to her about her forthcoming work as director for Il Trovatore and Semele.
Read the full review, here.
Romeo and Julie; or the Corn is Always Greener
Reflecting on Gary Owen’s recent play, Romeo and Julie, at the Sherman Theatre, David Cottis explores the connection between this latest adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and Emlyn Williams’ The Corn is Green.
Read the full review, here.
Reviews
Art by Everyman Theatre | Review
Pete Gaskell was at Chapter Arts Centre to see Everyman Theatre’s production of Art, Yasmina Reza’s comedy which opened in Paris in 1994 and won the Molière Awards for Best Play, Best Production and Best Author.
Read the full review, here.
Sam Patterson was at the Wales Millennium Centre for Gallifrey Cabaret, a new cabaret show, inspired by Dr Who.
Read the full review, here.
In case you missed it…
The Cartography of Home
Available to subscribers through Wales Arts Review Plus, in the latest of our collaborations between Wales Arts Review and The Western Mail, Ellie Evelyn Orrell reflects on the call of home in the works of Welsh-Egyptian photographer, Mohamed Hassan, mapping Hasan's depictions of Wales against her own experience of belonging and home.
Along a winding road, bordered by sloping fields and crooked stock fences at either side, I’m suddenly home. I’d been scrolling through a sleepless night in London when I first encountered the work of Welsh-Egyptian artist, Mohamed Hassan. I saved it, taking a screenshot in the way I might once have carefully torn a photo from a magazine and folded it away into a notebook for later reference. Like a seashell holding onto the sound of waves, it became an amulet of home that could fit into the space of my coat pocket, carrying something of Wales to wherever I was.