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The Green, Green Grass of Home: Mr Jones An Aberfan Story - Finborough Theatre

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A life of hope and promise, interrupted, lies at the heart of Mr Jones: an Aberfan Story. The play follows two young people in Aberfan before and after the disaster that killed 144 people, including 116 children. It’s an emotional coming-of-age tale of intersecting lives, family, love, and the shock of tragedy. With two vivid performances and strong characterisations, you feel immersed in 1960s Welsh small-town life. It’s now running at the Finborough Theatre , after performances at the Edinburgh Festival and across Wales.  The Aberfan disaster is well known in the UK but perhaps less so elsewhere. The facts of the tragedy are confined to the programme notes rather than in the piece. On 21 October 1966, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on a mountain above Aberfan engulfed a local school, killing many. The play avoids the causes and negligence, instead focusing on those working and building lives in the town.  Writer-performer Liam Holmes plays Stephen Jones, a...

Talks preview: Preservation during conflict @WorldMonuments


As part of a series of talks about heritage in conflict zones, on Tuesday 16 May at the Royal Geographic Society World Monuments Fund Britain presents Zaki Aslan, Director of ICCROM-ATHAR - an international body that works to conserve cultural heritage in the Middle East. Zaki Aslan will provide significant insight into the state of heritage in the region and discuss how the world’s nations could help more with conservation. The evening will be introduced by Tracey Crouch, Minister for Sport, Tourism and Heritage at DCMS.

This event follows the 2015 inaugural talk World Monument Fund talk in which Professor Maamoun Abdulkarim, the Director-General of Syrian Antiquities, visited the UK for the first time. With the recent news that Palmyra in Syria has just been freed from ISIS for a second time, Maamoun Abdulkarim will join the lecture by video to give us the very latest position on his country’s besieged cultural heritage.

Conflict continues to dominate the Middle East and we regularly hear about cultural catastrophes as heritage is deliberately targeted by direct damage, looting, abandonment and neglect. Historic buildings, artistic treasures, monuments and neighbourhoods are repeatedly dismantled or destroyed. Alongside the physical destruction comes the loss of people to champion heritage and the expertise to conserve it.

Photograph: © iStock RPMGas

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