Turbid Flows the Taff
From JAME S TUCKER
DOWN here in South Wales our commercial television company, Television Wales and the West, recently took off Tempo to give us The Roy Rogers Show instead. Explaining the move the company said it felt it should cater for juvenile tastes at this hour and that in any case Tempo and The Time, the Place and the Camera, which also came off, were not doing well in this area.
Last week it was announced that the New Theatre, Cardiff, is being closed by the Stoll company after Easter. This is the only theatre in the city (population nearly 300,000) and one of two in the whole of South Wales.
It is in this kind of context that a group a sparkling enthusiasts are trying to convince the people of Wales generally, and of Cardiff in par- ticular, that what is needed and feasible is a Welsh National Theatre. In fact, because of the bubbling convictions and apparently irresistible idealism of the movement's leaders, you occa- sionally meet people who imagine that the project is actually under way—that the cement-mixers are on the site. Such people talk with genuine pity about the protracted, flabby and obvidusly doomed attempts to get a similar institution in England.
However, this optimism is only a testament to the ability of men of vision to convince those around them that the visions are reality. There is, sad to say, no activity on the site. Indeed, there is no site.
The theatre was designed for an area of ground alongside Cardiff Castle. It is a delight- ful spot, in the midst of green and trees, over- looked by the phoney towers of the Castle and very close to the centre of the city. The Taff cnamt.i, flows near by. It is grubby and dark, but would no doubt look attractive enough in the half- light at the beginning of an autumn first house. When the St. David's Trust launched the scheme among sandwiches and an atmosphere of fail accompli in the Park Hotel, Cardiff, last spring there were artist's impressions of what the theatre would look like in its magnificent setting. For let there be no mistake, this theatre is not merely an unspecific idea lacking all substance. A model exists. I have seen it. Besides the model theatre there is a model art gallery and a model café, all under the same model roof. A press pho- tograph also exists showing some of the members of the Trust looking at the model proudly. These are facts.
Unfortunately the land near the Castle belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. It is now vir- tually certain the Church will not release it. There has been a change of archbishop in Cardiff since that warm afternoon in the Park Hotel when all seemed assured. Hints that the ground would be available have been replaced by strong hints that it will not.
But this has not deterred the St. David's Trust, and certainly not Mr. Clifford Evans, the actor, one of its most demonstrative supporters. He says that Cardiff City Council has suggested other sites which could be used. These are far- ther out from the centre of the city, but already Mr. Evans is half-inclined to believe one of them is superior to the original and seemingly ideal Castle site. Perhaps the destruction of this first intention will be a boon. Soon there may be an artist's impression of what the building would look like in a different setting. They could even make a model of the site and put the model Of the theatre in it. This would make for a really solid impression that progress is being made. Cardiff City Council, which would come in for some financial responsibility if the theatre ever was built, is divided about the project. This, of course, does not worry Mr. Evans. He h, generously thinks that there can be no genuine long-term reluctance to believe in the idea which be believes in so much.
On the general questions of money, likely audience support and acting and writing sup- port, Mr. Evans is, naturally, fully confident. He reacts to inquiries'about capital and subsidies as if one had the word `Philistine' branded on the forehead. At the Park Hotel meeting he answered most press questions on finance by holding up telegrams from actors who had said they would appear in the new theatre. Since then he has grown rather more dismissive of such im- pertinences. One can, though, discover from Other less culturally imperious sources that the general intention is to put the bite on the people of Wales through the local authorities and to look hopefully to the Arts Council.
Well, it is true that the pennies of the Welsh have done great things in the past: there prob- ably wouldn't be a University without them. I suppose they could work the miracle again, even if TWW and the Stoll have had such depressing evidence of taste in the populous South. Perhaps the Arts Council would come across adequately, though so far its assistance on capital projects has not been of a kind which would go far in an enterprise of this size. It is possible that Mr. Evans is right in believing that star actors and actresses are going to continually skip away from Hollywood and the West End to appear at Cardiff. Maybe a new school of excellent native playwrights will appear once the theatre is functioning. If only someone would make a model of the concept of Continuing Success for the theatre—an abstract of some kind—perhaps people generally would feel a little happier about it all.
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