FOUR PLAYS FROM WALES Ancient and modern

About the Book

Plays Ancient and Modern move from the eighteenth century to the present day, Bard is the story of the ‘Welsh Shakespeare,’ Thomas Edwards, aka Twm O’r Nant, a brick-layer, furnace-builder, bankrupt and write of ‘Interludes,’ an early form of play. Twm robustly attacked the corruption of the day but his attacks were ignored by the authorities and the academics, for Twm wrote exclusively in Welsh. Bard puts Wales’s own ‘Shakespeare’ on stage for the first time. A second rebel of the time was one Edward Williams, aka ‘Iolo,’ a stone-mason, and, like Twm, a supporter of the French and American revolutions. Iolo was one of the finest scholars of the age, and one of the greatest literary forgers of history too! He tricked generations of Welsh academics and is not forgiven even to this day.

The ‘modern’ play, Greed, examines contemporary corporation and utility ‘fat kats,’ looking into the nature of greed itself. The second play Those Fields of Yellow… traces the course one the most frightful of modern witch hunts, the anti-child abuse hysteria which broke out in the States and then traveled to the UK. This led to the formation of the False Memory Syndrome Society, an effort to defend parents and relations from the wrongful accusations of their own children. This play charters the course of one family and how they deal with the pressures of such accusations.

About the Author

Dedwydd Jones, born Wales. Haverfordwest Grammar School, Latymer Upper School, London. Army, lieutenant, tank transporters, Berlin. Capt Berlin Army Rugby Team (his highest achievement!) London School of Economics, Warberg Institute of Classical Studies, London Univ. BA, Hist/Economics. Fellow in Drama, University of Wales, Cardiff. Old guard Welsh Nationalist. Early member Welsh Republican Movement. Various grants, Arts Council of GB/Wales. Actor/writer BBC TV Wales. Over 25 plays produced, Mermaid, Vaudeville Theatres, London; New Theatre, Cardiff, Edinburgh Festival, Cambridge, etc. Poetry, various mags. Travelled Europe, teacher, woodman, gardener. Lived Switzerland 14 years. Editor 2plus2, International Lit Review. Plays for Swiss radio. Returned to UK, 1993. Taught EFL Bedford School. Theatre journalist for The Stage and Television Today, London. First novel The Lily and the Dragon published 2003. The Raven Man (based on the life of Edgar Allan Poe) his second novel, published by AuthorHouse, Autumn 2005.  His first volume of short stories Armed and Ridiculous (AuthorHouse) published Winter 2005. Four Plays from Wales to be published early 2006. Now working on his next volume of short stories. Lives in Bedford, UK. Three lovely daughters. Member Society of Authors, UK. Dramatists’ Guild of America.

www:dedwyddjones.co.uk