There are myriad films, plays and books focusing on heroes of English, Scottish and Irish history but far fewer that tell the stories of the great figures of Wales. A major new play about the Welsh nobleman Owain Glyndŵr’s early 15th-century rebellion against the English crown will help redress the balance this autumn. Michael Sheen, who will play Glyndŵr, said one of the main rationales for staging the show was simply that the rebel leader’s story had never before been told on such a large scale.
That tells a story in itself.” Sheen said when growing up in south Wales he had not been taught about Glyndŵr’s rebellion against Henry IV. I was never taught about him. He’s in the cultural collective consciousness so at some point I became aware of his name but I knew nothing about his story,” he said.
It wasn’t on the curriculum. And again, that tells you something.” Owain & Henry, will be performed at the Donald Gordon theatre at Wales Millennium Centre, the second biggest stage in Europe, by Sheen’s fledgling company, Welsh National Theatre. Sheen said there were very few ambitious, large-scale Welsh plays written for big theatre spaces.
Maybe a couple of weeks’ run. And maybe a cast of maybe two or three. Beyond that, it becomes very difficult.” Sheen said the Olivier award-winning Welsh playwright Gary Owen had only felt able to create a sweeping version of the Glyndŵr story when the pandemic seemed to make it unlikely that it would ever be produced.
He said: “During Covid, during the lockdown, he thought, no one’s going to ever see this play anyway, so I might as well write it the way I want to write it.” Sheen described Glyndŵr as a very unlikely rebel. He worked in the service of English noblemen. Fought on behalf of the English king, Richard II, in Scotland.
Fought against the French. He was taught at the Inns of Court. And this land dispute grew and grew and grew until eventually he was essentially being called a traitor.
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