SPEAKERS’ CORNER
“WHAT ARE THEY FOR?” ASKED ANNE ROBINSON OF THE WELSH. IT’S ROUSED THE IRE OF WRITER NIALL GRIFFITHS, NATURALLY OF WELSH STOCK, WHO WRITES A PASSIONATE DEFENCE OF HIS WITTY BRETHREN AND BROODING COUNTRY I HAVE A LIVERPOOL accent and birthplace, and Welsh blood, name and address, so I’m accustomed to being the butt of jokes [...]
“WHAT ARE THEY FOR?” ASKED ANNE ROBINSON OF THE WELSH. IT’S ROUSED THE IRE OF WRITER NIALL GRIFFITHS, NATURALLY OF WELSH STOCK, WHO WRITES A PASSIONATE DEFENCE OF HIS WITTY BRETHREN AND BROODING COUNTRY
I HAVE A LIVERPOOL accent and birthplace, and Welsh blood, name and address, so I’m accustomed to being the butt of jokes and jibes. Indeed, were I the type of fella overly sensitive to perceived personal slurs, I’d have pitched camp outside the local Campaign for Racial Equality offi ces long ago. As it is, I wear my Cymric badge with pride, even a certain boastfulness; it represents belonging to a stocky, blue-eyed mountain tribe adept at singing and drinking, given to overt displays of emotion, and intoxicated with (among other things) words.
The common misconceptions about Wales could not be more misconceived: the hilly little country I write from is warm (despite the rain), welcoming and witty (and we only fancy sheep if they’re very attractive). Aeons before the Saxons were importing trousers and prissy disapproval, we were dancing around a blazing fi re and getting tanked on mead.
And, oh, what prissy disapproval. In recent years Jeremy Clarkson has been forgettably rude about, well, everything, including the Welsh. And Anne Robinson, with a face so pinched it looked in danger of imploding, asked: “The Welsh – what are they for?” At the risk of endowing that preposterous query with a dignity it doesn’t deserve, I will state that one of the functions of the Welsh is to not be the English – to provide a tonic to their larger, stronger, sniffi er neighbour. Take, for example, two superfi cially similar areas, the Lake District and Snowdonia (or Eryri, to give it the proper Cymric name, “place of eagles”). Enthralled by the tourist quid, Lake District towns are all teashops and tamed privet, warm sherry and cold judgement. Whereas Eryri steadfastly remains free of the twee, resistant to prettifi cation and possessed of a brooding wildness that comes from living at the foot of colossal waves of rock.
Similar can be said of national poets;
Dylan Thomas died romantically, and tragically, young, in New York; Philip Larkin disappeared into oblivion in Hull. Or chat-show hosts; Charlotte Church is sexier, younger, girlier and with fewer speech impediments than Jonathan Ross (though, admittedly, not quite as funny). Or football; Wales, at least, know they are crap and will never win anything but are going to have loads of fun trying. I could go on. And on and on (which is what having Welsh blood is all about).
Where England has homesickness, Wales has hiraeth. This untranslatable concept is related more to the Brazilian saudade, or the Spanish duende, a kind of affi rmative longing, of attachment to a place so physically and spiritually profound that it’s almost heartbreaking and thus a wellspring of creativity. When I’m returning home, my heart lifts as one with the green ground rising into mountains outside the window, and I wish, as I always do on Welsh trains, that my home country was better served with airports. But I know the welcome that awaits me beyond Offa’s Dyke (built, don’t forget, to keep the Welsh – that funny little people with their funny little ways and language – out of England); the loud, generous, affectionate welcome that is extended to everyone – even, at times, the English: Croeso i Cymru.
Writer Niall Griffi ths is one of the contributors to Common Ground: Around Britain in 30 Writers (pictured), edited by John Simmons, Rob Williams and Tim Rich, published by Cyan (£10)
FLYING THE FLAG
MAKE MINE A PINT IN AN OLD-FASHIONED PUB, SAYS BILL KNOTT
“PINT OF CARLING, please,” said the slightly dishevelled old man at the bar. The barman informed him that they had a fancy Czech lager that was just as good, if a tad more diffi cult to pronounce.
“And a bag of crisps.” “No crisps, I’m afraid,” replied the pale young man with a second-class degree in mixology: “Olives or pistachios.”
Visibly shaken, the old man made for the door. The honest boozer that had been his refuge from both work and home for decades had been turned into a style bar, and he felt distinctly out of place. Gone was the shelf full of brown ale and the basket of cling-fi lmed cheese rolls. In their place, a humidor and a menu featuring seared tuna and braised lamb shanks.
Back in the bad old days, before pubs started aspiring to Michelin stars, landlords used to lure in drinkers on a Sunday lunchtime with free bowls of peanuts designed to keep them drinking and stave off the pangs of hunger which might lead them inexorably away from the bar and towards a plate of roast beef with all the trimmings. Now, people actually eat Sunday lunch in the pub, traducing its social function completely.
Pubs should be about characters and conversation, about a community and a shared set of values, not an identikit lounge full of poseurs and pot plants, set to a thumping soundtrack.
It is, I hope, just a matter of time before the metrosexual posses of merlot-quaffi ng mullet-munchers grow up and realise that an old-fashioned pub has much to commend it: a proper landlord, good draught ale, a dartboard and an absence of drum ‘n’ bass. If conversation is truly an art, then its galleries are in danger of disappearing.
CULTURE VULTURE
DAVID LAN ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF A MUCH-LOVED THEATRE
WHEN THE YOUNG Vic fi rst opened in 1970, it was built to last just a few seasons. By 1999, its fabric was in such poor condition that the council was threatening to close us down. A couple of years later, we had the Arts Council’s attention. After we announced our intention to rebuild the theatre, the Lottery awarded us £250,000. We hired architect Steve Tompkins, late of the fabulous Royal Court rebuild and much else, who started by talking to everyone who had experience of our theatre. He took our ideas and produced an ingenious distillation – far bolder and more witty than anything we’d imagined. The whole project would total £12.45 million.
I asked Jude Law to be patron of our fundraising campaign. At the time, he had also agreed to play the lead in Doctor Faustus. But in the middle of the run he suffered a freak accident and we were forced to tell a packed house that the show was cancelled. Fortunately, I was very hard of hearing – and I left the stage impressed. “What a compassionate bunch. They took it so well,” I said.
“No, they didn’t,” said Kevin Fitzmaurice, my executive director, probably adding silently “you deaf git”. “They were heckling you.”
This, I realised, was the great paradox. Theatre is made by people who are as vulnerable as those who watch it. At every level, it’s a metaphor for human life. “The show must go on” is an imperative that turns on the all-too-obvious fact that sometimes it just bloody can’t.
As it turned out, I hadn’t killed off my leading actor and chief fundraiser. The next night Jude was back on stage and over the next 18 months, thanks to Jude’s charm, a maximum Lottery award of £5 million and generous donations from foundations, trusts and well-wishers, we raised the remaining £7.45 million.
Occasionally, I wondered if we were making a big mistake, trying to transform our famously falling-down theatre into a time-defying institution. But here we are two years later, with a new building, two new smaller theatres and a sold-out run of a community opera, Tobias and the Angel. Was it diffi cult? Yes. Was it worth it? Come soon and see for yourselves. But we have no doubt. We hope you’ll share it.
