Life in the valley becomes a soap opera

IT’S known for its history and culture – from its mining heritage to its famous male voice choirs and colourful personalities.

And now life in the Rhondda Valley has been turned into a soap opera that people can watch at the theatre once a month.

Rhondda Road, a continual drama produced by theatre company Avant Cymru, began earlier this month and aims to tackle issues faced by the community through acting.

Artistic director Rachel Pedley-Miller said the idea came about after talking to locals about what they wanted to address.

“We wanted to investigate what audiences wanted,” she said. “So we started talking to some of the young people at the comprehensive school, groups from the WI, through Rhondda Radio and a local councillor, and started asking people what they wanted to see.

“We spoke to the younger people and they were saying that they didn’t feel very connected with the community, that they felt that the older generation looked down on them, that they didn’t have opportunities to mix. We were also hearing from lots of people that they felt there were lots of issues in the Valleys that it would be good to talk about.

“We did a bit of a call-out to ask people what the name of the show should be and what sort of things we should be talking about. People came back and said about bullying. We also heard about a gentleman who had finished university and was struggling with homelessness, so we approached both of these topics in the first episode.

“We had questionnaires at the end of the episode and were given ideas from the community about what they would like to be addressed in the future, so they were talking about drink-related dementia and young carers, so the themes in the show cover things that are relevant to the local community.”

The show takes place on the second Tuesday of every month at 4pm at the Parc and Dare Theatre in Treorchy and is deliberately performed during the day for a special reason.

Rachel said: “Lots of people were telling us that the over-50s would appreciate coming to see something in the daytime because it was difficult for transport, they didn’t like going out after dark, so we looked at putting something on that would go on before the trains and buses would finish.”

The project is produced by Alan Humphreys, who worked with Rachel on the recent Pontypridd YMCA Memories Exhibition.

For tickets, which are free, call 01443 570030.