NATIONAL THEATRE, LONDON Emlyn Williams’ 1938 play is a kind of Billy Elliot of the Valleys: the old-fashioned but hugely entertaining and affecting story of a Welsh miner’s son who escapes his class-bound home town with the help of a bold schoolteacher It would be easy to write off this revival of Emlyn Williams’s semi-autobiographical drama as an example of post-lockdown “comfort theatre”. First performed in the West End in 1938, this tale of a talented Welsh miner’s son and his inspirational teacher is laced with sentimentality and tweeness. There is even a lilting choir of singing miners whose presence seems orchestrated to tug at our emotions. But if it _is _comfort viewing, it is undeniably artful, affecting and hugely entertaining. At its centre is the impoverished, illiterate Morgan Evans (Iwan Davies), whose teacher, Miss Moffat (Nicola Walker) gets him “over the wall” of his limited horizons and all the way to Oxford University. Evans is a Billy Elliot of the Valleys, of sorts, though the indomitable Miss Moffatt gives him lessons in Greek and Latin instead of dance. Continue reading...
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