Sean Mathias Discusses A PRAYER FOR WINGS at King's Head Theatre

very small amount of rent but it was sort of I wrote it really based on watching my mother nursing

my father when he was dying so it's a very it's got a very personal cry the identity of the play

is very much a Welsh identity and it's also very much a woman's play it's about women since I wrote

it I've written very little and my career has been mostly well almost exclusively as a director

so I chose to go back and pick up this work because I'm hoping to write again but of course

the fear was that the play would be seen would not be relevant or would be dated or would not be seen as pertinent or well after all this time And actually although it set in the period and we kept it in the period

because it's sort of being in a period, it brings another flavour, another element to it

with my experience as a director and all the productions I've done since, to go back and look at an early work as a writer and to see what I can bring to it

I've directed it before. Joan Plowright was the original director of the Edinburgh Festival

and she turns 90 on the day that we start rehearsals of The King's Head

Isn't that incredible? So it's been an exploration, but that exploration has been very encouraged by the people who've seen it so far

It was a very big emotional journey for me going to do the play in Swansea

because I hadn't worked in Swansea for many years and hadn't done this play for many years

hadn't been a writer for many years. It was almost going back and retracing steps

So Dylan Thomas wrote a famous story called Return Journey, and he a Swansea lad and it felt like a return journey for me It was absolutely thrilling But it really special to bring it to the King Head because Dan Crawford who ran it long before Adam came along

was a big supporter of my early work and did one of my early plays there. Swansea was extraordinary because it was a..

Swansea turned 50 this year as a city. So they were celebrating an anniversary

So the Swansea Grand, which is a receiving house, a beautiful theatre, a lovely, lovely theatre

produced three shows to celebrate Swansea's, I don't know what you call half a centenary

but 50 years as a city. And one of the artists they asked

all with Welsh artists, and they asked me as a Welshman to come down and do my play there

But of course, it's a Swansea vernacular, so it was a Swansea audience

so they really loved it. They were very positive. And it's funny, the play's, there's a lot of laughs

There was a lot of laughter. There's a lot of punctuating laughter that relieves the tension and the darkness and the sadness

But it's very moving. People would be literally sobbing Yeah it moving So Klinos Daniels plays Ma the mother and Alice Wynne Davis plays Rita the girl

and Luke Rodry plays Tom, Jim, and Phil. Those are the three

lads. They're all Welsh working actors. When we came to cast it, and I had a casting

director from here, well, she lives up north, actually, but I'd worked with her here

at the Park Theatre. I was anxious that I wouldn't be able to cast

there wouldn't be a pool I got that wrong the pool of talent coming out of Wales is incredible

I saw some fantastic people you know, I'm going to sound so indulgent

but I can't praise them enough I couldn't be happier with them and I'm very excited for London to see them

and of course they're all so excited about coming to do it they're already like, you know, it's like Christmas

so Prayer for Wings, which I wrote and am directing is going to play at the King's Head Theatre in Islington

from October 30th to November 23rd at 7pm every night. Please come and see it