|
[This story first appeared in the Western Mail] HELEDD BIANCHI will be bringing her passion for women's politics and history to the stage when she stars in a new one-woman show about the daughter of Owain Glyndwr. The actress and her, mother Diana Bianchi, a producer-director, have been working on the play, Catrin Glyndwr, for more than a year. The Welsh language production will be premiered in Harlech on May 21 before touring Wales. Through a combination of sketches, music and dance, it tells the story of the daughter of the 15th century Welsh nationalist who was proclaimed Prince of Wales. Catrin was captured in 1409 at Harlech and taken to the Tower of London, along with her children and her mother, during her father's fight for the freedom of Wales. The children were potential heirs to the throne of England through Catrin's marriage to Edmund Mortimer after his capture at the Battle of Bryn Glas in June 1402. Catrin and her children remained imprisoned in the Tower for four years, but by 1413 the force of her father's uprising was spent and the new king, Henry V, took the throne in March. By December of that year, Catrin and two of the children were dead and they were buried at St Swithin's Church in London. Heledd, who is from Cardiff and starred in the S4C soap opera Pobol y Cwm, and her mother have always had an interest in history and women's issues, so they launched their own theatre company, Bwcibo, to produce shows telling audiences stories from the past. Their first production, the one-woman cabaret The One Road, was staged last year by Heledd and celebrated the achievements of women during major political battles over the last 40 years - from the war to the miners' strike. "The purpose of the company [Bwcibo] is to look at the contribution women have made," said 28-year-old Heledd, a former theatre studies student at Trinity College, Carmarthen. They decided to write a play about Catrin to mark the 600th anniversary of the crowning of Owain Glyndw r. "There have been lots of celebrations about him but we don't hear much about his daughter. "Catrin was a very strong figure at that time - she wasn't the typical princess that people think of so I want to put across my vision of her." The production will be directed by another Pobol y Cwm star Huw Garmon. |
| Western Mail arts pages web site: icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0900entertainment/0050artsnews/tm_objectid=14176258%26method=full%26siteid=50082%26headline=dramatic%2dtribute%2dto%2dowain%2d |
| Karen Price e-mail: |
Saturday, April 24, 2004 |
Older news
stories have been carefully archived.
2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999