Ye Olde Rose & Crown Theatre 7 – 26 February. Reviewed by Claire Roderick
The world premiere of My Land’s Shore attempts to bring the story of Dic Penderyn to an audience wider than the Welsh and trade unionists. It is a tale of injustice worth telling, with lessons about social injustice and class division still relevant today; but, in this form, sadly, I don’t think many will take notice. I come from stereotypical Welsh Labour stock, so really wanted to love this show, but was left underwhelmed.
Dic Penderyn was hanged after the Merthyr Rising of 1831. Protesting the lowered wages and unemployment among the workers as their masters lived lives of luxury, the Rising was put down by troops, and leaders Penderyn and Lewis Lewis were sentenced to death as a warning to future rebels.
Robert Gould’s book unfortunately gets bogged down in fitting the story into a traditional musical theatre arc, with clunky dialogue and exposition in between drinking songs, hidden secrets and red flag waving anthems. It’s been described as the Welsh Les Miz, and that’s is the show’s HUGE problem. The wooden set, all planks and doors to represent the pit and the miner’s hovels resembles the barricades, there’s even a dogged lawman determined to bring the men to justice, whatever the cost, who has a moment of doubt and conscience over the death of a young boy.
Christopher J. Orton’s music is rich and full of lovely themes, but begins to sound very familiar as the story progresses. The standout songs are Air for a wise Celtic fool (hauntingly sung by both Raymond Walsh and Aidan Banyard) and My land’s shore. The trial is also fantastic, if you block out the ridiculous voice over track. Why they didn’t stick to the idea of the masters and judge looking down on the workers from their scaffolds is a mystery. There is also, in my opinion, slightly too much blasting out one line and whispering the next in lots of the songs. I’m all for a bit of light and shade, but this is high noon in the Sahara and total eclipse in Siberia. It gets a little tedious and detracts from the emotion of the number.
The cast do well with what they’re given – Aidan Banyard and Rebecca Gilliland make a fine couple, and Taite-Elliot Drew is phenomenal as Sheriff Javert (sorry, Jenkins) in what is unbelievably his professional debut. Fine voices all round, and their march behind the red flag of revolution sends shivers down your spine.
There are some very entertaining sequences and the intent and passion of the writers and director Brendan Matthew is clear, but My Land’s Shore makes it seem as if the riots were suppressed very quickly, rather than showing the rioters take over the town and repel repeated attempts over the week to overthrow them as the insurrection spread amongst the valleys. In the show, it seems like a little localised spat, with an overreaction by the authorities – perhaps less focus on the women and more on the actual uprising would have created a show that Penderyn and his comrades deserve.