Ed Thomas is the most exciting playwright in Wales, and one of the most arresting in the UK.
The Guardian
House of America was Ed Thomas’ first full length play. It’s success led to him forming theatre company Y Cwmni which later became Fiction Factory. From 1988 to 1998 he wrote and directed ten plays, touring the UK Europe and Australia, winning numerous awards, translated into ten languages and adapted into film, radio, opera and documentary.
House of America, 1988
Wrong town, wrong dream. The Lewis family is dominated by a mother’s secret, a missing father, Jack Kerouac and the American Dream. When a father leaves his family for the American mid-west, a mother keeps a secret and kills a cat called Brando and a brother and a sister go on the road with bourbon and Benzedrine in search of Jack Kerouac…
House of America first toured in the UK in 1988 and won a clutch of awards including Time Out/01 for London award for ‘Best New Play’. Toured again in 1992 and 1997, it has been translated into French, Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Croatian and Welsh, and performed widely from Montreal to Perth.
Nothing prepared us for the explosion of guilt, passion, angst and cultural concern of HOUSE OF AMERICA... it's thrilling stuff.
The Guardian
An achievement of amazing power, understanding, horror and wisdom which holds its audience in an iron grasp.
Mail on Sunday
… a modern tragedy for a neglected nation… the performance left me humbled… a master work.
The Scotsman
This is a universal soul-mate for anyone who has experienced the angst of an untrendy upbringing in a drab place. Mesmerising.
Buzz
Parthian Books, 2002
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The feature film adaptation, also written by Ed Thomas and directed by Marc Evans, was released in 1997, distributed in the UK by First Independent Films, and premiered at the Sundance Festival in Utah. It won a number of awards including ten BAFTA Wales awards and best film at Gothenburg Film Festival.
Coal, the dole and heaps of soul. House of America is an honest triumph.
NME
Terrific… achingly well acted for those who like their meat raw.
Daily Telegraph
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Adar Heb Adenydd/The Myth of Michael Roderick, 1989/1990
A soldier learning a new language, a pianist without a piano, a bride grieves her dead husband, while a woman gives birth to a beach ball. A tragic farce where only a fool can become a hero.
Adar Heb Adenydd is Ed Thomas’ only play written in Welsh. An absurdist drama, later translated into English and entitled The Myth of Michael Roderick it toured Wales and the Edinburgh Film Festival to great acclaim.
A motely crew of Welsh people - from Dan, the one-eyed piano teacher, to the captain who has lost his past, his language and his trousers - create a spell-binding visual treat exploring themes of belief and belonging. The Welsh language contributes to the sense of magical disorientation, and Dalier Sylw's plot synopsis fills in the gaps admirably.
The Times
Thomas's challenging new play in Welsh...will cause a stir.
Against a background of fields and rolling hills, they subvert all cliches and stereotypes of Wales.
If there is a message in this play it is that identity has to be built out of the present, whatever the origin, vulnerability and seeming oddness of the material. The aggressive, vivid performances which give the play its feeling of logic and conviction, state that these Welsh people, at least, know who they are and where they are coming from.
The Guardian
Adar Heb Adenydd both revels in and mocks the conventions. In an aggressively anti-naturalistic production, the characters are out of Beckett, a mercenary struggling to learn Welsh and whose uniform has been stolen by a Fool, a guru-cum-piano tuner , a spurned bride complete with wedding dress, an escaped prisoner and a pregnant girl who gives birth to a beach ball. A skeleton taken to be the remains of a national hero turns out to be a railway worker.
The Guardian
Flowers of the Dead Red Sea, 1991
Mock and Joe are the denizens of the slaughterhouse. Blood spattered and half naked, their conversations boil with beauty and rage as random objects fall from the sky. Who is a craftsman? Who is an artist? Who stole Tom Jones’ dicky bow? Is this the last place?
Premiered at the Tramway, Glasgow with a UK tour in 1991, it was awarded Venue Magazine’s Play of the Year and has been toured throughout Europe; as well as forming the basis of a libretto for Music Theatre Wales’ opera, Flowers by John Hardy.
Stunning performances, but it is the words from a machine gun volley which steal the show. A roller coaster of emotions – shocking, touching and funny.
Western Mail
…extraordinary, dark-woven, witty, blackly subversive, roller coaster writing… the stuff troubled dreams are made of, curious, intensive, strange and memorable.
What’s On in London
Published by Seren Books, 1994
East from the Gantry, 1992
Bella met Ronnie by phoning him up at random. Trampas called himself Trampas after the sixties series The Virginian because he had no home. Bella met Tramas on a derelict hill. Ronnie shot dead a cat he thought was Martin Bratton. A love triangle of infinite possibility, shall we kill ourselves through love or pay a visit to the garden centre to get a new fan belt for the lawnmower?
East from the Gantry won an Arts Foundation Award and toured the UK and the Ukraine. It has been translated into and performed in Catalan, Galician and Spanish.
The most exciting new playwright since Saunders Lewis to come out of Wales’ search for a distinctive voice.
The Guardian
…wholly consuming and mesmerising…
Rebecca Nesvet, theatre-wales.co.uk
Thomas has a wonderful ear, his rich anecdotal writing creates a whole world out of a handful of characters. His direction is impeccable and his actors work for him with well-deserved devotion.
Sunday Times
Published by Seren Books, 1994
Envy, 1993
A monologue by Ted John, caretaker of an almost derelict welfare hall, where until the disappearance of a local businessman, an episode of quiz show “Mastermind” was due to be recorded. Envy toured extensively around Wales and the UK.
Hiraeth/Strangers in Conversation, 1994
“Two talking heads, talking bullshit in Limbo”
In 1994 Ed Thomas collaborated with the artist Iwan Bala to create this forty-five minute installation piece, in which the disembodied heads of two actors, their eyes blanked out and hair encrusted with plaster, appear out of nowhere and start to speak. They have no individual existence – they are just two talking heads, talking bullshit in limbo…
Song From a Forgotten City, 1995
“This ain’t heaven man, this is Cardiff”
One man’s journey into the heart of the imagination, to a metropolis where love, sex, revenge and murder play a deadly part in the soul of a lost nation.
Winner of the Barclay’s New Stages Award, it played in June 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre, London before touring the UK, Bonn, Bucharest and Australia.
A grand slam triumph, buzzing steaming dialogue delivered to a spell-bound audience.
Sunday Times
Unsentimental, urban, madly imaginative and lyrical… brilliant.
The Independent
A post-modern theatrical car crash, a mind blowing evening, a fierce elaborate brilliant stream of consciousness. This strange and powerful piece of theatre manages to say more in two hours than many writers manage in a lifetime; and it is also at the same time extremely funny. The actors gave great performances – unforgettable, witty, heroic, right on the edge of theatre and its possibilities.
Scotland on Sunday
Parthian Books, 2002
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Gas Station Angel, 1998
Bron is a babe who drives a blue Marina. Ace is her guy but his house has fallen into the sea. His mother believes in fairies, her mother wants her missing son Bri back. Two families, one secret, blown apart in 16 hours 48 minutes of a Saturday night.
In 1998, in co-production with the Royal Court Theatre, Gas Station Angel opened at the Abassadors Theatre, before touring the UK, Brussels, Copenhagen and Berlin. It has been translated into German, Spanish and Welsh, and an adaptation for the screen is being developed.
Powerful theatre, rich and strange, great one-liners. Thomas at his fizzingly inventive best.
Financial Times
…as emotionally moving as it is intellectually satisfying.
Heike Roms, theatre-cymru.co.uk
…magnificent engaged drama
Jeni Williams, theatre-cymru.co.uk
There is something quite wonderful about this alchemical act of transformation. Thomas’ colourful, rhythmic use of languages creates a beguiling and unique poetry… (as) delicately moving as it is robustly funny. Absorbing, enchanting and observant.
What’s On in London
Theatre junkies should check out Gas Station Angel… dark, strange and very Welsh, as one of the characters puts it. Funny is a stirring and original.
The Independent
A wild and whirling talent… The production itself… makes good use of the space. Richard Lynch plays Ace with skill, Siwan Morris is a sexily appealing Bron, and Richard Harrington makes his mark as the blond, bolting Bri.
The Guardian
Parthian Books, 2002
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Methuen, 1998
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