Debuts are difficult. National Theatre Wales has solved the problem by launching an ambitious first-year programme with a defiantly local show: a populist piece, written by Alan Harris, about life in the valleys after the pit closures. It starts its tour in a south Wales institute built for the miners in 1925 and now a multipurpose arts centre; what the show lacks in narrative focus it makes up for in communal vigour.
The form it takes is a mix of stand-up and soap: cabaret blends with stories as if we were watching a raucous version of Under Milk Wood. Our host, Con, is a joke-cracking MC and manager of the "'stute", as it's affectionately known, who paints a vivid picture of a struggling town where the carpet shop doubles up as the taxi office. But the principal storyline stems from the return of Kyle to prospect, on behalf of an international firm, for gold mineral deposits. Kyle's plans would involve demolishing the 'stute, and his miner father was once ostracised as a scab, so his presence stirs up ancient hostilities.
"The past is a trap" is the play's message. The valley towns, it argues, have to move on, bury the mining myths and redefine themselves. That's a plausible argument, but Harris's stories frequently undermine it. For Kyle, local loyalty wins out over commercial imperatives. Elsewhere, a son is reluctantly reconciled with his dying dad, a painterly wife sticks with her drunken spouse, and a female amateur boxer skips a big fight to attend a funeral. If Harris never resolves the contradiction between tribal tradition and the need to break the mould, he provides a graphic portrait of present discontents: a schoolgirl's tirade against the predictable pattern of her life won a volley of sympathetic applause.
For all the unresolved tensions between past and future, the tone of John E McGrath's production is festive. Bingo, booze and songs blend with social issues, and the cast of six swap roles with furious and sometimes bewildering speed. Boyd Clack holds the show together as the MC, and there are striking contributions from Siwan Morris as the pugilist, Amy Starling as a mutinous cake factory worker and Sharon Morgan as a dog-toting senior who is into heavy metal. The show is torn between populism and preaching, but it gets the company off to an ebullient start and whets one's appetite for its upcoming programme.
