Ledi’r Wyrcws’s new stage play will tour 13 theatres across Wales this spring including Theatr Twm o’r Nant, in Denbigh.
Morfudd Hughes, Owen Arwyn and Judith Humphreys come together to perform the play by the author Jerry Hunter, which was inspired by a story he heard about Miss Amy Parry Williams recording folk songs in a circus in Denbighshire.
Jerry knew that the Lady — the scholar’s wife and poet, T. H. Parry-Williams – had done pioneering work in recording folk songs that were on the verge of dying out. But he was surprised when he heard that the circus had been standing since the 50s.
Jerry said that a member of the Welsh society at Bymu in Annerch in a chapel in Denbighshire told about an old local building — noting that it was the old circus where Ledi Amy Parry-Williams recorded some of her best folk songs with a woman who lived there in the 1950s.
The story immediately caught my imagination and I began asking myself questions, such as who was that woman and why had she ended up in the circus? What kind of conversations did Amy Parry-Williams have with her ‘between the songs’, so to speak? And why was the circus still standing in the 1950s; was there a new NHS?
“It was amusing to think of the two wives spending a day in each other’s company — both clearly cherishing the same culture but coming from different backgrounds and living in very different circumstances. The stage drama was the obvious medium to explore such a situation.”
To find out more about the Ledi’r Wyrcws tour across Wales, and to book tickets, go to: Ledi’r Wyrcws | Galeri Caernarfon Ltd, Caernarfon, Gwynedd or tickets for the Twm o’r Nant Theatre show are also available at Siop Clwyd or from Gaynor Morgan-Rees on 01745 812349.
List of performances:
04 – 05 March | Galeri Caernarfon
07 March | Twm o’r Nant
10 March | Theatr Clwyd
13 March | Theatr Derek Williams
17 – 18 March | Theatr Arad Goch
19 March | Yr Egin
20 March | Theatr Felinfach
24 March | Theatr Soar
25 March | Canolfan Gelf Pontardawe
26 March | Yr Olwg
28 March | Neuadd Llanofer
01 April | Neuadd Dwyfor
02 April | Pontio