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Front Row: Caryl Lewis, Gwenno, Anthony and Kel Matsena

02/05/2022

Caryl Lewis, Gwenno, Anthony and Kel Matsena

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Caryl Lewis, Gwenno, Anthony and Kel Matsena

Front Row from Wales: writer Caryl Lewis, singer Gwenno, Matsena Brothers, choreographers.

A Bank Holiday edition from Cardiff, with Welsh writer Caryl Lewis, Gwenno, who sings in Cornish, also, the Zimbabwean-born, Swansea-raised choreographers Anthony and Kel Matsena.

Huw Stephens, familiar to listeners to Radio Cymru and Radio Wales presents a multilingual, multicultural  Bank Holiday edition of Front Row from Cardiff. 

Caryl Lewis is a mighty presence in Welsh literature, author of more than 25 books. Her novel Martha, Jac a Sianco is a modern classic, taught at A Level. She wrote the screenplay for the film – and won 6 Welsh Baftas. She wrote for the television series Y Gwyll - Hinterland in English - inventing Cymru Noir, so noir it was shown on Danish television. She was also the main writer of Hidden, screened in 60 countries. Until now all her work has been in Welsh but she wrote her new novel, Drift, in English. Nefyn lives on the Welsh coast, near a military base. She gathers what the tide carries in and her world changes when she finds Hamza, a Syrian cartographer, washed up. Caryl tells Huw about her modern and ancient story, and why she chose to write it in English.

In 2009 the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger declared Cornish extinct. But musician Gwenno Saunders was alive then, and she grew up speaking it. Most of the songs on her new album, Tresor, are in Cornish - the others in Welsh. Gwenno explains why, and performs two songs, one in each language.

Choreographers Anthony and Kel Matsena were born in Zimbabwe, in a culture where everyone dances. They moved to Swansea as boys and were nurtured by the people there, and Wales as a whole. They take a break from rehearsing their new work, Shades of Blue, which will premier at Sadler's Wells, to talk about this and Codi, a piece for the National Dance Company Wales that is inspired by Welsh mining communities, and about Brothers in Dance, a BBC documentary film charting their journey.

Presenter: Huw Stephens
Producers: Nicki Paxman and Julian May

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