Mid-Week Culture Blast, 18 June 2025

How a vision of a theatre, from over half a century ago, still speaks loudly to our present

I’ve spent the last three days on a hill outside Mold, a small market town of 10,150 people in North-East Wales. I’ve been thinking about what happened here nearly half a century ago, and what’s happening now.

No, I haven’t gone feral on a wayward solo rural retreat. I’ve been in the biggest producing theatre in Wales, Theatr Clwyd [it’s pronounced Theatre Cluh-wid, you English/South Walian swines], which reopened its main space last month, after a massive redevelopment project part-funded by government, part-funded by so many others.

The new areas that are open feel warmly and welcomingly modern, while still celebrating many details of the theatre’s past. And I saw a show – Tick, Tick….Boom! - which spoke to the power of what creativity can give us. It’s been a magical few days.

Above: the new bar/restaurant space, looking out to the Clwydian hills; the bar itself, with new tiles based on the original tiles throughout the theatre, by artist Frances Priest; and the show!

The original Theatr Clwyd building – now rewired, refitted, refurbished and sensitively extended with more community spaces, more windows and so much more light – was built by the local council. Its original plans included an opera hall and a museum. It didn’t get these, but it did get two theatre spaces, a gallery and a cutting-edge education technology centre, to be used by schools to learn skills including film-making and design. The studio at the Ed Tech centre was a little too ahead of its time and eventually became a TV studio, used by HTV and S4C to produce groundbreaking programming across Wales, including in Welsh.

All this began in 1976, in a building that wasn’t demolished or mothballed but constantly reimagined and revived to suit the times. And it survived. What utopia is this?

Above: The original theatre tiles from the auditorium (my goodness, I’ve found out so many great geeky things about these) and the bar, all still at home.