Final curtain call for theatre company which leaves behind a rich legacy

After 25 years of touring Shakespeare and championing new Welsh talent, Fluellen Theatre Company is taking its final bow this September with a farewell production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mark Rees caught up with founders Peter Richards and Claire Novelli to look back on a quarter-century of theatrical innovation

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It began, improbably, in a car park in Essex. Peter Richards, then a freelance director, was sitting behind the wheel after rehearsals for The Winter's Tale when a thought struck him.

He was tired of travelling up and down the M4 for work. By the time he reached Bridgend - sometime around 3am, he reckons - the idea had taken hold: a classical theatre company based in Swansea.

One that would make Shakespeare accessible and meaningful to Welsh audiences.

That idea became Fluellen Theatre Company.

"At the time, there was nothing else quite like it,” says Peter. “If you wanted to see professional Shakespeare in Swansea, you'd be lucky to catch two or three productions a year - and most of those were open-air.”

Now, two-and-a-half decades later, Fluellen is preparing for its final curtain call.

Named after the fiery Welsh captain in Henry V, the company has spent what Peter describes as a third of his life bringing classic theatre to audiences across Wales and beyond, offering something vital and often overlooked.

“We had no funding, no venue, nothing,” he recalls of those early days in 2000.

“I found myself in the No Sign Wine Bar one day and asked if we could stage Macbeth in the cellar. They thought I was mad - but they said yes.”

It wasn’t exactly health and safety compliant.

The floor was stone, the walls were damp, and sparks flew as the actors' swords scraped along the ground - and sometimes waved inches from the audience's faces. But it worked.

They built a loyal audience with a reputation for imaginative takes on the classics, from Dracula to Wind in the Willows, and forged strong ties with Swansea Grand Theatre, where they became company-in-residence in the Arts Wing.

“When we first performed in the Arts Wing, everything was on the flat - no rake at all,” says Peter, of the newly-opened theatrical space which hadn't yet introduced tiered seating.