2026 marks the tenth anniversary of Gŵyl y Llais, the Festival of Voice, an international arts festival based at the Wales Millennium Centre. This year, Cwmwl Tystion headlined the Saturday show, the highlight of the Gŵyl y Llais festival. Cardiff Bay is, historically, a heart of British jazz. Cwmwl Tystion headlining the Saturday show is a nod to that jazz heritage. And, fittingly, Cwmwl Tystion was a poignant nod to the heritage of Welsh jazz. But has Cwmwl Tystion become a victim of its own success?
“I wanted to do something that reflected the Welsh experience”, explained trumpeter and composer Tomos Williams– and you don’t need a pre-existing knowledge of Wales to appreciate or enjoy “Cwmwl Tystion III”.
This show carried an additional weight: the fact it was a rare and one-off performance by the collective. The show served two purposes: a launch for their most recent album, Cwmwl Tystion III: Empathy, but to finish the larger project overall. For just over an hour on-stage, the group performed their latest work in its entirety.
Cwmwl Tystion III: Empathy marks the final suite of music created by Tomos. The first album, Witness, saw the group tour Wales, while the second album explored Wales’ rich history of direct action and protest, featuring contributions from the spoken word artist and jazz musician Soweto Kinch. Two themes emerge within the work of Cwmwl Tystion: one, of documenting the Welsh experience, and two, a commitment to exploring those experiences through jazz.
On stage in the Weston Studio were Welsh vocalists Nia Lynn and Eadyth Crawford, bass giant Melvin Gibbs, Irish guitarist Chris Guilfoyle and Mark O’Connor on drums. The group played an evocative and beautiful set of pieces that felt more like a live-art installation rather than a concert , which were beautifully complimented by the live visuals from Simon Proffitt. Tracks like “Welsh Not”, and the stirring “Streic y Glowyr 1984/ Miners Strike 1984” confronted historical struggles head-on, featuring archival footage of struggle from the Miners Strike. “Beth yw Maddau? / What is Forgiveness? ”, however, led by Nia Lynn was a highlight of the event “Paul Robeson yn Aberpennar/ Paul Robeson in Mountain Ash”, “Mynydd Epynt ”. The show ended with a soaring performance of “Cyrmu Cenedl Noddfa/ Wales: A Nation of Sanctuary”: a song that is becoming more and more relevant within Welsh society.
October 2026, alongside Gwyl y Llais, marks the Cardiff Music City Festival. As Cardiff’s heritage of live music is used to promote the city: how is it that jazz collectives like Cwmwl Tystion are retired on indefinite hiatus, and what does this say about the health of Welsh jazz overall? We need more Welsh jazz in society: Cwmwl Tystion is one of the most original and best critically acclaimed groups to emerge from Wales in recent decades.
Established in 2016, this year marks the 10th anniversary of Cardiff’s premier international arts festival: Gwyl y Llais. This week-long festival spans storytelling, music and performance with an extra-special focus on voice. We had the pleasure of sitting down with trumpeter Tomos Williams. Interestingly, each year, the Wales Millennium Centre programmes jazz shows: and this year is no different.
This year, the Cwmwl Tystion collective has been booked to play the Wales Millennium Centre, Cwmwl Tystion is a ground-breaking jazz collective led by Welsh trumpeter Tomos Williams.With three albums created over the past 7 years, Cwmwl Tystion is an imaginative, pioneering and ambitious jazz project. A hallmark of jazz has been its relationship to struggle, identity, and experience: something Tomos has embedded in this work. Cwmwl Tystion has explored the Cardiff 1919 race riots, Aberfan, the Blue Books, Paul Robeson, and other historical significant events spanning Epynt, and Mahmood Mattan. Each iteration of Cwmwl Tystion explores a theme. The first explored witnesses, and the second explored riots. The last and final iteration of Cwmwl Tystion is on empathy. In a bright cafe in central West Cardiff, trumpeter Tomos explains that he wanted to “go out with a bang”. Cwmwl Tystion is some of the most exciting jazz to come out of Wales in decades. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Tomos ahead of Cwmwl Tystion’s last gig to ask him more about the project, and the health of Welsh jazz.
Tomos Willaims
Yasmin: If I recall correctly, the term Cwmwl Tystion is used in a Waldo Williams poem, but originally it’s a Biblical term. What’s the provenance of this terminology and why have you used it for your work?
Tomos: Yeah, so for me that initially came from, Cornel West, the African-American philosopher. I saw a clip of him talking about something and he was talking about a cloud of witnesses. And, yeah, it’s that idea of using the term cloud of witnesses, that idea of bearing witness. That’s one of Cornel’s big things, bearing witness to the African-American experience. It is a biblical phrase, but I also liked how Cornel used it . The use of it from Waldo’s poem. “Pa’ beth yw dyn?” meaning “What is man?” It’s an existential poem,. He deals with what nationalism is in one bit of it, but he also deals in the big issues of humanity, existential questions. He asks’ What is nationalism? To build a house in a cloud of witnesses’ It was mirroring how Cornel used it as a sort of bearing witness to one’s experience. I wanted it to have that kind of dual meaning, in a sense. And I really liked the fact that it was being used by Waldo, because Waldo was a pacifist and a nationalist. And Cornel has been a big influence on me since I was in college, I liked the idea that the phrase Cwmwl Tystion ‘cloud of witnesses’ could be bearing witness to both the African American experience and the Welsh experience. I wanted this to be a project that sort of brought “the Welsh experience” into light.
Cornel West and Waldo Williams
I’d also been listening to two amazing projects, one by a trumpeter called Wadada Leo Smith. He has an album called Ten Freedom Summers, which just basically follows the African-American experience from slavery right through to the present day. It’s phenomenal, it’s incredible, it’s massively inspiring. And, you know, it’s like, “Wow, this is what music can do, eh?
And then there’s an artist called Matana Roberts. They play the alto sax, and, they’ve got a series of albums called ‘Coin Coin’ It’s a very personal project, almost a kind of psycho-geography following the path of their ancestors all the way back to the Middle Passage, and then arriving in the US, dealing with trauma, rape, memory.
I mean, it’s incredibly heavy, but it’s an amazing project. And they change the band every album, and I liked that idea. When I started this, it was like, well, I’ll do one project. And after the first one, I then had the idea, hang on, that was good, I could do it again. That’s where Matana Roberts’ influence was in the idea,you could have an overarching project and change the line-up each time. So, that’s more of the musical side, but yeah philosophically, , the idea was, using Cwmwl Tystion as a title because of Waldo’s poem, using that term while referring to nationalism, the existentialism inherent in that poem, and then of Cornel West’s influence, too.
Yasmin: Thank you for explaining this. It’s fascinating to hear more about the project, and its inspiration. Cornel West was a contemporary of Glenn Jordan, whose teacher, St Clair Drake, did his PhD on the topic of Cardiff Bay! Everything always links back to Wales. . If this is the last gig, does this mean that this is the culmination of Cwmwl Tystion?
Tomos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve decided in my head that it’s going to be a three-volume series. It’s not going to carry on forever. I decided that once I knew that the third one was happening, “I was like, OK, that’ll be the end. Just because it went from being a Welsh-only project to including UK musicians and then the last one was international with Melvin Gibbs and Nguyên Lê : I liked that idea. They’re all different sounding. I think the first one has a bit more strings. (It’s a bit more avant-garde, if you like. The second one is a bit more groovy with Soweto Kinch and Orphy Robinson and the rap. And then the last one is what I call a power trio, which is very heavy guitar, rock-based rather than pure jazz in that sense. I found I’d covered a lot of ground and was like, well, what else am I going to say? So, I felt the trilogy feels good. It will be the end unless we are invited to play somewhere else. So this performance at Llais will be our last one.
Yasmin: What are you working on next then, if this is the end of Cwmwl Tystiom?
Tomos: Well, there are plenty of other projects. I’ve got a band called Burum , It’s our 20-year anniversary next year. I’m putting a tour together of Wales and that’s a Welsh jazz/folk band. We play jazz arrangements of Welsh folk tunes. I’ve also got a new band featutring Edyth Crawford on vocals. Again, we perform jazz arrangements of Welsh folk tunes, but with different players. So, I’ve got Huw Warren on piano, Paula Gardner on bass. They’re kind of my mentors, in a sense, so I’m very excited about this band.
Yasmin: What do you think of what’s going on with Welsh jazz at the moment as a phenomenon? I worry perhaps within Wales we have less jazz than other areas in the UK.
Tomos: It’s certainly pretty hard at the moment . There was the Sandringham Hotel on St Mary’s Street. The Café Jazz used to be there. That was the jazz place when I first came to Cardiff over twenty years ago by now. But that closed just before COVID,I think. The whole thing around live music is in decline , isn’t it? Jazz in particular because it’s a subculture. It’s really hard. But I think Welsh jazz is in a good place because there’s lots of people playing it. There’s just not a lot of places to play it. I and a few other in the Welsh jazz scene have been setting up a new body which is applying now for charitable status called Jazz Explorers Cymru where we aim to promote and increase education of jazz in schools and things. That’s a positive step. We’ll try to make that happen and keep bringing jazz to the people of Wales!
Cwmwl Tystion’s last show is this weekend at Gwyl y Llais at the Wales Millennium Centre. Book your tickets here now.
History is one of those parts of being a Culture Vulture I love. I wouldn’t say I’m a nerd but I do love me a bit of history. And as a Brit, we all know about holding hot dogs around a bonfire in a field and looking up at fireworks at the sky while we freeze our butts of every November.
But this is a production to tell us about what we didn’t know about the Gunpowder Plot. Remember, Remember! is a hilarious, untrue and re-imagined retelling of Guy Fawkes and the plot to blow up Parliament. It is everything we know and much more we don’t with the change of the story from conception to what really happened; to the change of the main man we know responsible today from someone we’ve never heard of; a camp love affair with the King and endless comedy in the farcical approach to the tale.
This is a slightly hard review to write because it definitely is a show you need to just experience. This isn’t a cop out but that I genuinely don’t think I could do it justice. It is so unbelievably funny, smart, fast paced, that you don’t have a single minute to breathe through laughter. The performers all play a multitudes of characters and they are all hammed up, and/or a stereotype of a figure; for example, Guy is a bit of a too-cool-for-school guy that everyone fancies and is just effortless. The way they do this for the characters is so well done and the element of over exaggeration fits well with the overall approach to the production.
Because they aren’t sticking to the “truth”, the embellishments aim to create comedy and shock you. They take a piece from the history and run with it; King James’s well known love of men is exaggerated, with him as a very camp, almost slimy character, with the tiniest of crowns and pink bloomers. Every element, from performance to costume, set and narrative is so well thought out and just absolutely stuffed to the brim with comical moments.
The performers are just fantastic – while the characters are well formed, there’s these moments of them as a group giving a break for narrative support and in this, they themselves have their own story-line – two have a love hate relationship, flipping each other off, and taking the mick and the lines blur between the historic and the modern. It only makes it more funny and we love each of these performers individually and in how brilliantly they work together.
Remember, Remember! is absolute hilarity from start to finish. Don’t expect to come out having learnt anything historically factual but do expect to come out with your cheeks and sides hurting from laughter and in awe of the absolute absurdity that has ensued.
It’s very rare that you get to see a show that you saw the very early version of and get to review a second time. Long ago, the days of Vault Festival allowed me to see the first iteration of Acid’s Reign and it’s fantastic to see how it has come along.
Acid’s Reign sees Drag Queen’s take on the climate crisis. In a chance meeting, Alex Acid and Ria Listic become firm friends, joining their artistry to fight against the climate through cabaret. In the need to get the message across, social media and commercialism comes knocking and the chance of fame over saving the world becomes a difficult choice. What also comes into question is friendship and comradery in the queer community.
I’ll try not to compare the first version of this show to the current. But it would also be remiss of me not to make some short comments. Firstly, the story has completely changed. The infant version of this show focused on Drag Queens as different elements and the impact on them, speaking from those points of view. As this was also their first attempt, the production value was smaller due to this and possibly funding and now the production looks almost west end ready. One wouldn’t be critical of this because both versions in their own merit have something. It’s therefore unfair to compare them but only to say, it’s wonderful to see in some what the trajectory of a show from its early days and the grind and development of it. Two of our performers are from the beginning – Scarlett Harlett and Jamie Fuxx return in this production and it’s wonderful to see them again.
As mentioned, the production value has increased. The stage is well set and its use of it, props and use of these for scene changes, such as rolling stools, helps with the easy and seamless change. Accompanying the aesthetic and wonderful and quintessential Drag outfits – camp, fun and unusual. One that sticks out is one outfit, worn by Victoria Scone, of plastic tape. It’s all in keeping with what we know of Drag and is as fabulous as we expect.
Like any musical, the original songs and the slightly campy acting in between work so well and have that essence of musical theatre. Victoria Scone has such an expressive face that she elicits laughter and slight hammed up acting which fits perfectly for the puns, the character and the production. The songs are catchy, fun and hummable. They are easily ones that could become cult classics and likely to be seen lip synced in plenty of queer bars and shows.
All the performers are well skilled and very professional in this musical theatre piece. They embody their characters with real ease and we get the feeling of true friendship, of jeopardy and when the friendship breaks down, it feels very real. Like any good musical, we are invested but are brought out slightly and rightly due to the unnatural use of a song during the scene to make this theatrical.
Acid’s Reign (2.0) is a fantastic new musical that could easily become a cult classic amongst the theatrical community. With a political message, brilliant performers and a real celebration of queer culture, Acid’s Reign could become a new musical obsession.
If you were at Fringe this year, you would have been hard pressed to miss the gigantic green monster around the city. Frank has come alive, once again, but this time, in the most unusual way.
This is a clowning show like no other. Slightly in mime, with a Mr Bean-esque approach of only sound and supported with spine-crawling bass, we are introduced to Frankenstein (Frank) from him coming alive to living … well, life.
He interacts with us, making comfortable eye contact, moving with stocky movements of his new limbs and being somewhat imposing. For such a tall man, and one as a “monster” he would be perfect to keep in keeping with the horror genre of this well known monster. But this is where it changes – Frank becomes adorable and friendly, despite shouting or groaning instead of words, and his story trajectory turns into his friendship of a green balloon – something that needs to be handled gently and with care.
By not using words, somehow, he still manages to easily communicate with us. We join in the fun with the balloon and understand the nuances of what he is trying to portray to us. Some audiences are reluctant and this could be misinterpreted as misunderstanding but it isn’t – it’s just a lack of wanting to be involved, because, Frank’s intentions are so clear.
What is wonderful is that this approach to Frank is completely different to the stories we know. This is a more emotional Frank, more adorable, friendly and approachable. This all comes in, somehow, how he interacts with the balloon, with kindness and intrigue and we fall in love with him. The kind of big-teddy bear man instead of something scary and dangerous.
His physicality is so extremley funny. He manages to make us laugh, taking his time and ensuring to take up space with his physical comedy. There’s no urgency, and if you have done any work in physical theatre, you know actually how much control and skill is put in to do these slow and precise movements. Accompanied by some shouting and groaning, it’s absolute absurdity and a fantastic piece of clowning.
TO BE FRANK is an absurd, unhinged and utterly heartwarming piece of clowning and physical theatre. You will go into the unexpected and come away falling in love with this giant teddy bear.
Every 80’s and 90’s kids will remember the nostalgia of watching Home Alone at Christmas. A cult classic, whether you’re a fan or not, you will know some of the well known clips and scenes, even from popular culture. Recent Cutbacks take our nostalgia and turn it on its head to present satirical remakes of these well known films, eliciting plenty of fun and comedy for all ages.
I will firstly admit and, will probably lose some of you in the process to say, Home Alone isn’t really a favourite of mine. I have of course seen it many times, especially as a 90’s kid, but it never really hooked me like it has others. And maybe that’s where it lost me to some degree. But it was no less comedic and fun to watch.
As the company’s name suggest, there’s a slight essence of the amateur about the production – and this is purposeful. The reenactments are sort of done with what they found in the kitchen cupboard and out of the attic and this in itself brings so much comedy in how they have tried to replicate with random dolls or hand made items. They have made little dollhouse style scenes in shoe boxes which are projected on the screen for us to see. The transitions between the scenes are seamless and when they bring in a green screen for some of the actors and larger puppets is so very clever.
The audience do get interacted with; puppets come into the audience and they use the stairs and sometimes us to try and recreate some of the trick-scenes against the villains. The ability to open up the space this way is very effective and let’s us become more immersed.
The performers themselves only start to be full physical acting roles with us further into the story, starting out as voices as we watch the miniatures being filmed. They are melodramatic and satirical of the show, adding the odd ad lib to say what we’re all thinking of the story-line – how did she forget him? Why was the neighbour in the line-up count able to be mistaken for one of the children, eliciting laughter over the obvious and mick taking.
KEVIN!!!!! is good fun. A unique take on theatre, really well thought out and evident of a bunch of 80’s and 90’s kids with a nostalgic obsession, it gives you a good giggle, whether a fan of the film or not.
We think we know all about the tragic story of the Titanic. Told through many films, productions and documentaries, this disaster continues to unearth story after story, but we still think we know the bare bones. But in this fantastic production, we learn so much more.
A one man show based on the true account from survivor Frederick Barrett, we learn so much more about the final hours of the Titanic from a working class stoker. Down in the stomach of the great vessel, this is where it claimed some of its first victims to the icy seas and we see this recounted through storytelling and immense physical theatre.
The set is very simple, atmospheric and ideal for telling this story. With only a couple of benches and watery lighting that changes to red with the ship lighting, while we may never know what this part of a ship looks and feels like, we get a very good sense of it. We feel like we’re in the belly, in the hot and cramped conditions and instantly amongst the events with Barrett and the stokers.
Performed by one actor, his physicality throughout this is impressive. Mainly, we are seeing the story from Barrett’s point of view, but he occasionally switches into other characters seamlessly. They’re subtle changes, whether that’s vocally, with an accent or a little physical change, and so we get to know these other characters very quickly. We see the comradery prior to the iceberg and we get a sense of these people which makes the tragedies all the more poignant.
When the iceberg hits, the change in pace is immediate and we get the sense of urgency. The performer’s ability to be able to do this whole production must be exhausting and he throws every bit of himself into it. With the little staging, he moves around the space somehow painting images of a ladder, of higher up, of the water coming in, of the corridors and we can see it so clearly in front of us. For us, this whole production is very real thanks to the performers ability to not only story-tell but to create an imaginary set in front of our eyes. Our heartstrings are pulled at incessantly, as we suddenly see these characters we’ve gotten to know disappear. We feel genuine grief at this and sit in the guilt Barrett feels for fighting the odds and surviving. This is all thanks to setting the scene, to creating these characters and immersing us in the story effortlessly.
Boiler Room Six: A Titanic Story is a feat of a one man performance, creating the scene with only physicality and atmospheric lighting. It is emotionally charged thanks to fantastic acting ability featured and successfully tells a new version of the well known tragic event.
Everyone in some point of their life has had an obsession. Whether with a thing or a person. But what happens when it becomes all consuming?
Harriet Richardson by trade is a performance artist. This is her first approach at comedy and boy is it a good one. Mostly autobiographical, Richardson delivers her story of becoming involved with a TV star and the subsequent obsession with him when he is suddenly taken away from her. But while the story is real, there’s a fantastic undercurrent of comedy to the truth.
Richardson is entirely herself. This is a performance but also we feel a little like we’re being told a tale with a girl friend over a glass of wine. She is unashamed, fearless and willing to really break boundaries. And what’s brilliant is this is all the truth – she has brought a true tale to us and so the comedy around it is not just delivered in a perfectly timed and comical way but is funny because it’s true.
Her piece is supported by a power point behind with images. This comes in actual pictures, screenshots from social media or texts and adding this gives a really good level to the production where it makes it theatrical and a show, not just that chat with our friend about her wild life.
Her delivery of the story is so well thought out. There is enough of a under narrative regarding this obsession but she then has these nuggets of additional stories – therapy that is supported by a performative photography piece where she isn’t afraid to show her at her worst or trying to do couch to 5k but ending up making friends with a priest. She is confident, engaging and fearless, willing to do anything for performance art and now comedy but also with being fully honest with us. She admits things that we’re told to be quiet about or is too taboo. We either want to be her, be her friend or see ourselves in her, feeling vindicated.
Harriet Richardson: Creep is what every person is too afraid to admit, is a brilliant piece of durational performance art based on truth and with the natural comedy that you couldn’t write. What makes it even more fantastic is how well presented it is by Richardson, with brilliant comic timing and just like a gossip session over a bottle of wine with your friend.
As you probably know, I’m a big fan of this troupe and their comedy prowess. While, sadly, we haven’t got a new show from them this year, we do get them and their good friends to give a varied cabaret night (or two) each week of Fringe.
In the hotel bar, Christian Dart and Sam Walls (no John Bond this time!) present a show with a bunch of acts from across the fringe; all comedians who are also somewhere in the city with their own fully fledged shows. Each show is different depending on who is on the bill, but you can always guarantee a good time.
This show I saw featured the comedy stylings of Crudi Dench, Dru Cripps, Nikola McMurutrie and Jermaia Detto. All very different acts but all very funny.
Crudi Dench is a well known Drag Queen with her own show only down the road, singing live and taking the mick of her home town Liverpool in satirical takes on modern songs. She has great stage presence, is so friendly and ever so funny in a traditional, comical Drag Queen way.
Dru Cripps brings his one of a kind show featuring a loop pedal where he creates songs based on the audience interaction. What we get is a satirical rock song that is partly unhinged. This is what we get with his audience member of choice of the night but any show of his guarantees something new every time.
Nikola McMurtrie gives us a dramatic rendition of a reddit post by a man who thinks women’s genitalia is a poor design. By presenting this as a serious piece and delivering directly to us with intense eye contact, it is naturally funny in the attempt to be overly serious.
Finally we have Jermaia Detto who brings a stereotyped Italian to the stage. He interacts throughout with his audience who he easily improvises off of, along with simple funny comedy such as moving a chair with an accompanied pun or taking the mick out of the audience’s attempt at a portrait of him.
Presented by Bad Clowns, they have natural stage presence and set the scene up for their acts with a lively and funny intro that echoes throughout the hotel bar. It’s mad and unhinged but sets a great precedent for the acts to really bounce off.
Bad Clowns and Good Friends is something different every time. Presented by brilliant comedians themselves, each show features different acts and you can guarantee a fun, comical and one of a kind night, every time.
Who would have thought that putting Shakespeare, veganism and the state of the world together in one production would make such a spectacular performance.
HAM is a show based on Hamlet, but instead of his father, Hamlet is looking for retribution for the death of a pig as a vegan. The acts are summarised and loosely based on but with this approach, with a healthy dose of comedy, of in-your-face theatrical techniques and pulling at your heart. It is unapologetic, kinky and so well performed.
Many of the quotes and reviews have said how funny this production is. And trust me, it is. Mary and Ell are very comedic performers but also have such a great ability to be unfiltered, in your face at the right time and able to switch and change characters so clearly and perfectly. They involve us in the performance, with small audience interaction but mainly by talking to us, like we are friends and in the most intimate way. It feels comfortable and so when they bring down hard facts, put difficult images and truths across to us, it hits us even harder than it would in any other performance.
I think what really hit me and the approach I wanted to give to this review which is different from others I’ve seen is how important this production is. Yes, Mary and Ell are funny, they take the mick, there are comical moments. But by being fearless, they really hit home veganism and the impact of this on the world and us. We see images and videos, real media that is of slaughterhouses, and treatment of animals and it’s a really difficult watch. The narrative adds to this impact and when Mary and Ell bring discussions and facts to us, we want to listen. All of this is important. I chose to be a vegetarian almost 10 years ago. As an animal lover and wannabe-eco-warrior, it felt like a choice that was important to make. And if I wasn’t already this, this show would have changed that for me. It was really hard to watch at times and left me in really inconsolable tears. Would I change it? Hell no. This is important to see and topics such as this need fearless performers like Mary and Ell to put it in front of us.
I feel I could go on and on about how complete perfection HAM is. But it would never do it justice. HAM is so smart, so important, funny and boundary breaking. It is a MUST see and, to really appreciate how utterly brilliant it is, you need to see HAM immediately.
Creating opportunities for a diverse range of people to experience and respond to sport, arts, culture and live events. / Lleisiau amrywiol o Gymru yn ymateb i'r celfyddydau a digwyddiadau byw
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