“We are, in one another, family”

The Family Shakespeare Festival, which took place last weekend from 2nd to 4th July, was a wonderful success and much needed after the sad news of the Arts Council Funding cuts during the preceding week. A line-up including big names Germaine Greer, Tim Caroll and The Factory Theatre Company provided wonderful and varied entertainment and stimulation for mind, body and spirit, and it would be an overly long blog post if I mentioned everyone who took part. The programme fitted so well together including local and far-flung, amateur and professional talent and the beautiful weather lent a celebratory feel to the whole weekend in which we were united in our exploration of family and relationship through the arts.

The innovative and exciting performances from The Factory, the incisive and fascinating exploration of text with Tim Carroll, Gill-Gorrell-Barnes and Andrew St George, the ability to express our own responses to what we were experiencing through the poetry, dance and puppet workshops, the amazing array of local talent at the official opening performance….......we were quite overwhelmed and thrilled by all of it. I’m going to be putting up some of the work that came out of the workshops, and people’s responses to the weekend, on the website in the Mid Wales Shakespeare Centre section so do take a look there and more will be added as we receive it.

Here at the theatre we want to give a special mention to the hard-working team of volunteers who tirelessly and efficiently made sure everyone and everything was in the right place at the right time, and always with a friendly smile and a welcoming word - thank you so much, we couldn’t do it without you.

Here are a few photos from the weekend (with many thanks to Faye Thomas for her fantastic pictures of the Factory performing As You Like It along the Nature Trail and in the theatre).