Mal Pope’s hit musical Amazing Grace based on the story of Evan Roberts and the Welsh Revival delighted sell out audiences during its first tour in 2005, and in response to demand returns this autumn for a limited tour.
It was first presented for the stage by The Wales Theatre Company in association with Swansea’s Grand Theatre in 2005 and toured to great critical and audience acclaim. The original cast starred Peter Karrie as the Rev. Peter Price and Shân Cothi as Mary Roberts, and both will recreate these roles for this first revival of the show. Two new exciting additions to the cast are the renowned Welsh singer and entertainer Margaret Williams and West End star Richard Mundy, who joins the show following two successful years as one of the leads in Blood Brothers.
Mal Pope, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show said “I’m so very pleased to have another opportunity to present Amazing Grace. The response from audiences and critics alike to the first tour just took my breath away. To see an audience laugh, cry and get to their feet every night with ‘Revival Fever’ was truly inspiring. The dream is to take this Welsh story to the world and it seems that dream is still very much alive.”
Michael Bogdanov, Artistic Director of Wales Theatre Company and Director of Amazing Grace added “The show was a tremendous hit the first time around, but I’m a firm believer that everything can be improved and strengthened and I knew that just some slight adjustments would have a great impact on the show. Over the past year or so I’ve been working with Mal and with Peter Cox who was a lead writer on Brookside for many years, to re-shape the book of the musical and to re-designed the stage set – I’m sure that audiences will love it – whether they’ve seen it before or whether they’re enjoying the uplifting Amazing Grace experience for the very first time.”
Amazing Grace is an uplifting musical that tells the story of Evan Roberts, a quiet and timid miner who became the greatest revival preacher of modern times, after he claimed to have met the Almighty face to face and talked with him as a man does with another man. At the time this was dismissed as the ramblings of a mad man, and indeed it was reported that he had finally ‘cracked’ and lost control at a small revival meeting in West Wales. But, within a week Evan Roberts’ name and reputation had spread like wildfire across Wales causing thousands to crowd into chapels across the country to hear his words on inspiration and catch a glimpse of this new Welsh prophet. Chapels resounded to the kind of communal hymn singing that Wales had dreamed of, with pews filled with the crying, weeping and the broken. Families were transformed, communities challenged, social and political awareness was enhanced as glimpses of heaven led people to dream of a new earth. The fire of the revival was lit and reports spread across the world, with the revival breaking out wherever the letters from Wales were read out loud, indeed beacons were lit as far afield as China and India, and even the massive religious revival in the USA in 1906 could trace its roots to the little town of Loughor.
Some criticised Evan Roberts, calling him a charlatan, claiming that he was a man consumed with pride and self-importance. Others questioned his decision to travel with four teenage girls, accusing him of being a manipulator and a mesmerist. Eighteen months after igniting the fire of heaven that burned out of control in Wales and to some extent swept across the globe, Evan Roberts was gone. The man whose popularity had led Lloyd George to cancel his political rallies had left Wales, rarely to speak again in public.
Amazing Grace opens on 26th October at The Grand Theatre, Swansea. It will then tour across Wales visiting Aberystwyth Arts Centre, The Wales Millennium Centre and Venue Cymru, Llandudno amongst others.
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