Wales Theatre Awards 2016 nominations announced

The shortlisted nominations for the 2016 Wales Theatre Awards were announced this evening in the Theatre Bar at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. The nominations for drama, opera and dance are listed below, and the awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, January 30th, 2016, at Sherman Cymru, Cardiff. The evening will be hosted by Nicola Heywood Thomas and Arfon Haines Davies, with performances by dancers from Sweetshop Revolution, Welsh soprano Angharad Morgan, and students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Updated February 1st 2016 with the winners

How to Win Against History (Pontio, Bangor)

Henry Cyril Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, was a singularly remarkable man. He was also an extraordinarily brave man for his day. Born in the depths of the strait-laced Victorian age, he lived a life of extravagance, exuberance and theatricality, fuelling his penchant for cross-dressing and frittering away his estate's millions on gowns, jewels and theatre.

Henry was a committed narcissist, a man who could not love another more than he loved himself. He indulged himself with wanton abandon: as soon as he became Marquess in 1898 at the age of 23, he set about using his privileged, financial freedom to carve a lifestyle for himself that raised Victorian eyebrows. He converted the chapel in the grounds of the family home at Plas Newydd on Anglesey into a theatre, and staged his own productions, with himself as the star.

Into the Woods (Royal Exchange, Manchester)

Gillian Bevan as the Witch

The problem with Into the Woods is that it finishes half way through. James Lapine's story is definitely a game of two halves, and it's the second half which really lets down the first. This is a common complaint about Into the Woods, and there seems to have been little attempt by Matthew Xia, the director of this production, to avoid this.

And maybe that's because it's largely unfixable. The ponderous nature of the second half - which fixates on the nature of cause and effect, who's really to blame for the events of the first half, and the grander notion of destiny and responsibility - drags the production to such a halt that the magic of what's gone before is soiled.

Saturday Night Forever (Theatr Clwyd, Mold)

Delme Thomas. Pic: Keith Morris

Monologues are tricky things to pull off. By definition, there's only one performer, so that performer has to be at the top of their game to grab the audience's attention and keep it, captivated, imprisoned, enchanted, for the length of the piece. In the case of Saturday Night Forever, actor Delme Thomas more than capably scoops up every single person watching him and takes them on a rollercoaster journey which runs the whole gamut of human emotion. This is a powerful piece performed by a powerful actor who knows his craft, and makes for essential viewing.

Thomas plays Lee, a young gay man living in Cardiff who tells us his story. He starts off by telling us about his life with his boyfriend Matthew, how and why that relationship crumbled, and then how a new relationship developed. It's a pretty straightforward story - one of love and lust, anguish and tragedy - but playwright Roger Williams has laced it with such truth and honesty that whether you're gay or straight, young or old, you can't help but relate to Lee's life.

Cinderella: The Panto with Soul (Theatr Clwyd, Mold)

Alex Parry as Verucca, James Haggie as Buttons and Dan
Bottomley as Hernia. Pics: Phil Cutts

It's a lovely touch that Judith Croft, the designer of this all-singing, all-dancing panto at Theatr Clwyd, has transformed the auditorium into a fairytale location, extending the magic of the stage into the audience, making the set just as inclusive as the dialogue.

Because that's what panto is all about - getting the audience involved in the action, making them feel part of things, and inspiring young minds into perhaps one day returning to the theatre to try something new and different. Eager young eyes watching Cinders go to the ball in 2015 are the discerning box office fodder of 2035, after all...

Land of Our Fathers (Venue Cymru, Llandudno)

Land of Our Fathers is set on Thursday, May 3rd, 1979. Or rather, the story begins on that day. It's more accurate to say that Land of Our Fathers is set throughout May 1979, because the protagonists are six South Walian coal miners trapped hundreds of feet beneath ground following a colliery accident. It's a chamber piece boasting a bland but beautifully realised set (well done Signe Beckman) and six wonderfully written characters. But is the story strong enough to hold the attention for two and a half hours?

A play this long needs to have enough twists and turns to really demand the attention of the audience, and indeed Land of Our Fathers does have its fair share of soapy revelations and melodrama. I'm not altogether sure what does happen warrants such a taxing duration; it could have been shorter without much damage to the plot. Some might say the play is as much an endurance test for those watching as being trapped beneath ground for days on end is for the miners. That's one way of looking at it. But to be honest, the audience is not trapped down a mine and might appreciate a little more brevity.

My People (Theatr Clwyd, Mold)

Pic: Catherine Ashmore

"There is no Wales to speak of, no real national life: no art, no dance, no folklore; no literature... except for the foolish mouthing of its preachers."

So said Caradoc Evans, writer of My People and once (and, for some, perhaps still) the "most hated man in Wales". Evans's short stories, published 100 years ago, portrayed life in Nonconformist Wales for what he believed it really was - hypocritical, stunted, short-sighted and ultimately self-deceived. He saw the power that the chapels of Wales had over their congregations - who, remember, were far greater in number then than today - as limiting to people's spiritual development. Without the luxury of self-expression and the freedom to lead life as one chooses (rather than by the rigid guidelines of organised religion), the Welsh culture could not develop or grow, and may never be a part of the wider world around it.