I’ve always been surrounded by stories. The most famous Welsh fables go back centuries, and are collected in the Mabinogion, a series of fables set in different Welsh localities, all interconnected in one great story.
What it says about Aberystwyth goes like this: there used to be a city, practically in the sea, next to where the town now is, and it used to be walled all around. When the tide came in they had huge gates that closed. One night there was a big banquet held by the king, and the guards were asked to stay by their gates and close them at the right time. But one guard sneaked off to the party, got very drunk on red wine and fell asleep. The gate was left open, the sea came in and flooded the city – so only a few lives escaped. If you listen very carefully as the tide comes in, and if it is very quiet and the wind is blowing in the right direction – you can sometimes hear the bell of the old chapel, ringing...
I’m 15 years old and it is fair to say that I do think of myself as a young artist now. When did that happen? Well, very recently. Of course, I have been active in drama groups at school for years, performing at eisteddfod, which are huge Welsh talent shows where all sorts of performing arts skills are rewarded.
When I was twelve, eight of us, my friends and I, were just messing about like a semi-formed pop band, and some of us were deep into disco dancing as a hobby, so we decided to enter into the Creative Dance competition. Eisteddfod work in three stages: local, county and national. We had little luck at the local level, but were lucky enough to have another chance at the county level and we won! I can’t tell you how ecstatic we were – and then we came second at the national level.
From dream to stage
More recently, I have had a chance to work with local theatre companies in a drama group for 14-19 year olds called Ceredigion Youth Company (CIC). We have done all sorts of strange stuff aimed at making theatre accessible for my age-group, because what with mood swings, hormonal changes and the like – let’s face it, we are a difficult bunch. That was the entire point of this particular group.
The people we worked with at Theatr Dawns Dyfed and Theatr Felinfach – groups based around the main theatre in Felinfach, near Aberystwyth – were aiming to give us a stronger motivation to do something with our lives – mature ourselves, and prepare ourselves for the world of work, including professional theatre work as young actors and actresses.
One high point after GCSEs, was when CIC put on a performance which involved keeping a dream-diary and writing down our dreams to make a sketch or a dance out of them. It was very experimental, and we were helped by a psychiatrist advising us who seemed to make good sense of it all. It might sound ridiculously stupid, but shall I tell you my dream?
I was with the Brady Bunch and we were getting out of a taxi in London and went into this newsagents, where one minute I was looking at an Asian man’s face and at the chocolate bars, and the next, I had shrunk to a minute size and started running along the chocolate bars which had turned into a race track which was suspended over a huge field. You could see the horizon and it was a beautiful sunset – it was very blue, and lots of other colours and I just fell into the sky, which was very refreshing, with the wind in my hair.
What does it mean? Well apparently, according to our resident expert, getting out of the taxi, I was with the Brady Bunch who were my friends and their parents. My family are not strict, but they are quite principled – ‘No drinking, no smoking and no going out when you are just fifteen’ – whereas all my friends go out. Going into the shop and along the chocolate bars was like an escape to freedom, and jumping off could either mean that my freedom was at an end, or that it was undecided, and that my fate was up to me...
Abergorlech Eisteddfod, Dyfed. Some of the audience huddle around a gas fire to keep warm. So there you are. Then, just before Christmas last year, I got a call from one of the directors, asking me if I would like to participate in a new drama. It was a really new concept of blending drama, dance and memory to investigate deja vu. Drawing on the homeopathic theory that different events leave an imprint on their environment, we were thinking about how Welsh culture is disappearing. We used the photographs in a photo album as our starting point.
There were only four characters: I played somebody who didn’t have a past and therefore stole these photographs. Another of us had a very troubled past she was trying to ignore, but who had to come to terms with it by the end of the play. A third was a keeper of the memories, who knew everything there was to know about the right dates, names and places for the photographs in the album. Lastly, there was someone who took the past for granted, and then found himself plunged into turmoil when the photos were stolen.
The concept was worked up through improvisation, and then scripted. The whole thing was very intense: a month-long rigorous mental and physical preparation, during which I had to train myself to do the splits, for example. I couldn’t touch my toes before I started. Now I can put my head on the floor! I was the only young person there amongst the adults and they treated me exactly the same as them. It was like a closely-knit family-and-friends set-up. We had a lot of fun.
So what being a young artist means to me at this point is something like a comfort in my life – a set of fond memories. It isn’t everything that I am or do, but it adds an edge of happiness to my life. I definitely don’t take it for granted, or sit at home waiting for the next phone call – I just glide around my life, seeing what will happen. But I do hope that it will happen again, despite the fact that it is such hard work. Because it is the hard work which makes it worth doing.
Upper Chapel Eisteddfod, Powys.The tea ladies with their refreshments laid out in the church schoolroom. London calling
That was how it happened that I took part in the LIFT International debate for young global artists! I received a text message which says, ‘Do you fancy going to London? There is going to be a week of activity with people representing places all round the world coming together to put on a show, take part in a discussion and go to lots of parties!’ I thought, ‘OK!’
The headmaster called me in the day before, shook me by the hand and congratulated me for being offered such an opportunity. I love going up to Paddington on my own, and there I was popped on a bus to the halls of residence, where I met a Belgian girl and two Iranians, in quick succession, before I discovered the other British participants. I rather regret that we Brits became very close so quickly. I think we might have blocked out a more international experience. Everybody was going on about how we were doing theatre and transcending language barriers, but you can’t really talk in smiles, can you? The connections with people from Britain were just deeper.
Two dozen participants descend on London for an international debate on the rights and roles of young artists. Iestyn Thomas second from right, back row.
But it might also have been a certain cultural difference, because when I think of Elaine – the 11-year old from Brazil – who was coming out with whole speeches which made the best sense of the whole performance we did – I don’t know where they came from! But then again, Jade, who is a Londoner, was also just amazing – that moment when she started talking about being born into a cruel and corrupted world – it was astounding, really! Maybe, it is our educational system, maybe it is because we are self-subsistent, but I do think that the British feel they can get away with staying put and living in their own little world. I fear, however, that ignorance is never rewarded: if you are ignorant then you are at the bottom of society no matter what your background or social class.
The beginners slab at the Welsh International Climbing Centre, built on a former colliery site So it was important to meet all these young people, precisely because it was a bit of a culture shock – more important than the performance. At the children’s ball, for example, there was one child who just wasted a whole platter of food, larking about – and Caesar, who came from Argentina, where thousands of people are starving day in day out, just refused on principle to perform the back end of a pantomime horse while that kind of wastage was going on. He walked out. I was the front end of the horse, and I thought that was quite right too! We sit here in the lap of luxury wasting all these resources, while people in other countries are pleading for help. And there is so much obesity in Wales – that isn’t the result of sensible eating.
But in the end of that LIFT week, I didn’t want to leave London at all: on the platform I was practically in tears. The weather was so wonderful, but by Bristol, you could just see this huge black cloud over the whole of Wales – ‘Welcome home, Iestyn!’
Actually I went through a phase of being quite depressed when I went home. The first conversation I had with people my age on the bus, they asked me if I enjoyed my week in London, ‘Oh yes! We did this amazing show: we met people from all round the world and went clubbing and saw all the sights!’ ‘Oh cool!’, they said, ‘we had a hell of a time too...we set fire to a bush!’ I didn’t know what to say to them.
Zul, in the yellow shirt, tells his own story... Meanwhile, goodbye till next year.
For a week afterwards I couldn’t have a conversation without London creeping in: and sometimes I’d find myself in fits of giggles at the thought of something that happened – in London. Well – reality kicks in pretty soon. But the latest news is that we will all meet up again, face to face, maybe in Malaysia in eighteen months time – thanks to Zul!
As for dreams of the future, well maybe my own dream wasn’t that far out – my life can go in two ways. I can either go into drama which I dearly love, and do whenever I possibly can. Or, my other big love is pen on paper creativity: I would really love to go into advertising. It isn’t a desire to have power over people’s minds and make them buy things, like some evil dictator. But I would like to direct and clean up the rubbish in TV advertising, for example, like Ocean Finance. I think I’m the person to do it. I know that’s a bit ambitious. But I would like to see my work on TV, and when it comes to marketing things, you see – I can use words that make all the difference.
Pictures by Jeff Morgan
