Search results for ""Author David Cottis""

When the north Wales-born actor and playwright Emlyn Williams performed his one-man show about Dylan Thomas, the critic Richard Findlater described him as ‘unravelling a ladder of words’ which he then climbs up, and pulls the spectators after him. Findlater called this ‘the Cambrian rope trick’, highlighting the process by which writers, and Welsh writers in particular, use the power of language to take an audience into an unfamiliar world. This volume brings together three Welsh plays from the middle of the twentieth century: Rhondda Roundabout (1939) by Jack Jones, from his own novel, a panoramic view of politics, religion, sport and music in the Valleys, described by the Sunday Times critic James Agate as ‘too good for the West End’, The Druid’s Rest (1944) by Emlyn Williams, a semi-autobiographical comedy about the fantasy life of an over-imaginative boy who suspects that an Englishman on a walking tour is actually a famous murderer, and After My Fashion (1952) by Diana Morgan, in which the widows of men who died on a Tibetan expedition discover untold secrets when approached by a film company, inspired by the Cardiff-born author’s own experiences as a screenwriter at Ealing Studios, which also formed the basis for the recent novel and film Their Finest. Edited and with an introduction by David Cottis, and following on from A Dirty Broth, which looked at the pioneers of the Welsh theatre in English, A Ladder of Words explores the period either side of the Second World War, a time when Welsh playwrights enjoyed unprecedented commercial success, both at home and in the West End. David Cottis is Lecturer in Scriptwriting at Middlesex University, and a theatre writer/director. He lives in London and Cardiff.

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A Dirty Broth Early Twentieth-Century Welsh Plays in English Edited by David Cottis With an introduction by David Cottis and Alyce von Rothkirch When Caradoc Evans’ play Taffy was first performed in London, the Western Mail reviewer described it as ‘like a dirty broth which, dished out to the English people, is swallowed with avidity.’ In so doing, it summed up the treatment often given to the tradition of English-language playwriting in Wales – sometimes ignored, sometimes disapproved of, rarely celebrated. This Anthology, the first in a series of three, brings together three plays from the beginnings of Welsh playwriting in English; Change by J. O. Francis (1913), a family drama of the upheavals at the start of the twentieth century, Taffy (1923), a fierce satire on the Welsh social and religious establishment, and A Comedy of Good and Evil (1924) by Richard Hughes, a magical realist fantasy of the dilemmas faced by a country cleric and his wife when they are faced with a literal demon-child. Edited by David Cottis, who also co-wrote the Introduction with Alyce von Rothkirch, this volume shows the earliest stirrings of the English-language theatre in Wales, and the first of many attempts to set up a Welsh National Theatre. It sees the beginnings of the preoccupations and subject matter that were to characterise Welsh playwriting throughout the twentieth century, and to influence later writers such as Emlyn Williams, Dylan Thomas, Diana Morgan, and Jack Jones.

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