An old tale but well told

Hiraeth, created by Jesse Briton, Buddug James Jones and Max Mackintosh, directed by Jesse Briton. Bats Theatre, Wellington 7pm until October 3. Reviewed by Ewen Coleman.

Known for bringing local madcap shows like Live At Six to the stage, production company Show Pony now has an imported play on tour from Wales, Hiraeth, that’s just as off the wall as many of its previous productions.

The show has been created by Jesse Briton, who also directs, and Buddug James Jones and Max Mackintosh, who both star in the show along with David Grubb. Mackintosh and Grubb also provide very appropriate music accompaniment throughout.

Based on James Jones’s own experiences of growing up in a small Welsh village, it tells of how she meets a musician at the local pub who regales her with tales of his travels.

Like many young people in rural environments throughout the world, she decides there is much more to life than chasing cows and harvesting potatoes, so she decides to leave home.

Predictably, there is much resistance from her parents and boyfriend but support from her grandmother, both before and after she dies.

Having first attended university, she heads for the big smoke, across the Severn River to London.

Of course the inevitable happens and the reality of living and making it in London is far from the fantasy she had imagined it would be.

A simple story told many times before but, like all good stories, it is not so much the story but the telling and in Hiraeth, the telling is extraordinary.

James Jones plays herself throughout, with frenetic energy, almost too much at times – the shouting and screaming of dialogue, particularly at the beginning and end, making much of it often inaudible.

But for the most part her acting out her story is exemplary, even though at the beginning she claims she is a ‘‘non-actor’’.

Playing all the other characters she encounters on her journey of discovery is musician Mackintosh, who is as adept at creating an array of larger-thanlife characters as he is playing guitar. His ability to switch from mother to father back to mother, for example, is amazing, and his high-octane performance never lets up for a moment.

In the background, fiddler/ banjo player Grubb, although remaining mute, adds much to the overall pantomime-like qualities of the production, which also has some quieter poignant moments, giving depth and quality to this fascinating, must-be-seen show.