A Ladder of Words

A Ladder of Words Description

When the north Wales-born actor and playwright EmlynWilliams performed his one-man show about Dylan Thomas, thecritic Richard Findlater described him as &unravelling a ladderof words& which he then climbs up, and pulls the spectators afterhim. Findlater called this &the Cambrian rope trick&, highlightingthe process by which writers, and Welsh writers in particular,use the power of language to take an audience into an unfamiliarworld.This volume brings together three Welsh plays from the middleof the twentieth century: Rhondda Roundabout (1939) byJack Jones, from his own novel, a panoramic view of politics,religion, sport and music in the Valleys, described by the SundayTimes critic James Agate as &too good for the West End&, TheDruid&s Rest (1944) by Emlyn Williams, a semi-autobiographicalcomedy about the fantasy life of an over-imaginative boy whosuspects that an Englishman on a walking tour is actually afamous murderer, and After My Fashion (1952) by DianaMorgan, in which the widows of men who died on a Tibetanexpedition discover untold secrets when approached by a filmcompany, inspired by the Cardiff-born author&s own experiencesas a screenwriter at Ealing Studios, which also formed the basisfor the recent novel and film Their Finest.Edited and with an introduction by David Cottis, and followingon from A Dirty Broth, which looked at the pioneers of theWelsh theatre in English, A Ladder of Words explores theperiod either side of the Second World War, a time when Welshplaywrights enjoyed unprecedented commercial success, both athome and in the West End.