Imagine a 'Disaster Movie' where all the young people are faced with a global catastrophe and they don't have the answer or the skill to survive - it all looks bad...... and then someone remembers an old story, part myth, part truth about some bloke a long long time ago who had the ability to steer a path from disaster. The old man is dragged reluctantly from his retirement home and he only agrees to take on the task if he can hand pick his team - the team he had a long long time ago .....

In a way that's how I've been seeing National Theatre Wales' latest production 'The Persians' by Aeschylus (an ancient Greek bloke). I'm not suggesting that Mike Pearson is from a retirement home - or even 'old' for that matter (or that he could save the world!), but its as if he's been rediscovered under a pile of books that he's writing, he's been dusted down and he's brought the old 'Brith Gof' team back together for one last time!

My first experience of Brith Gof was at a performance in Ljouwert, Fryslan in the Netherlands. My girlfriend at the time Sytske's parents had bought tickets to see a Welsh theatre company perform in town. I wasn't very interested in seeing Welsh theatre when I'd come to the Netherlands but I went along with it. I started to get a bit more interested when we turned up at the ice rink. Reading on the ticket 'stout footwear should be worn' the audience had turned up all wearing clogs. This was so 'Old Dutch' I thought - you don't see people in clogs these days outside of their gardens in the Netherlands, but here they were forming a very long queue all weraing clogs.

The performance blew me away - literally! Because the audience occupied the same space as the performers they used a water cannon on the audience to move them around and create avenues for the performers to move between the audience. It was loud, explosive, exciting and very moving.

This performance was an adaptation of 'Y Gododdin' the oldest surviving poem in Welsh. It describes a battle and the ultimate futility of war.

The first time I ever saw Mike Pearson he was bare chested wearing a black kilt, screaming and holding an oil drum above his head running towards me. He threw the oil drum at a car that Sytske and I were standing next to (yes, the set was made up of batterd old cars, trees, piles of sand replacing the ice in the rink huge metal things, huge rope nets, oil drums, stuff burning, etc. etc.). The windscreen was still in the car and it shattered into a million pieces as the oil drum hit it, showering me and Sytske in glass. I was instantly a 'Brith Gof' fan and saw almost every performance from that moment.

Brith Gof in Barcelona

Brith Gof performing 'Haearn' in the Iron Works in Treorchy.

'Haearn'

'Cusanu Esgyrn' by Brith Gof, a very emotional performance that used real life experience from the wars in the Balkans.

'The Persians' is an ancient Greek tragedy, the oldest surviving play in Europe. The main theme of the play, again, is the futility of war. So where better to stage it than the 'German Village' in the hills above Sennybridge in the Brecon Beacons where the army train for house to house combat. On the military map this is F.I.B.U.A. (Fighting In Built Up Areas).

Rehersals have been amazing, the army has been rehearsing combat situations in the village while a bunch of thespians have been training in preparation for a performance. As the actors have gone through their lines soldiers have been rattling off rounds from their machine guns. The soundtrack that John Hardy has crafted to this ancient script has been re-orchestrated by the vast military P.A. system pumping out the beats of incoming rockets and explosions to the background rhythm of screaming villagers.

Technical team keeping it together behind the scenes.

This is quite surreal - but you get used to it very quickly, even the heavy machine gun pumping out its sinister beat from the house next door. A rhythm you can feel in your chest.

The actors have had to do battle too - with the script! They have had to fight to force these ancient Greek names and texts into their brains so that it all eloquently trips off the tongue.

So what am I doing here? This performance has updated the ancient Greek play to include bullet proof vests and a cameraman - and thats me, my theatrical debut.

Above, this is the house normally used to demonstrate how to fight in and clear a house. The front wall is missing so that the platoon under instruction can see the demonstration unhindered. For National Theatre Wales' purposes the house has become the stage and where the platoon would have sat to watch the demonstration is now where the audience will sit to watch the performance.

You might notice seven or eight monitors in the rooms and a big screen at the top. This is where I come in. There's a mixture of pre-recorded and live video material that is going to be projected onto the screen and shown on the monitors. I will be running around filming material for the live projection onto the big screen - I'll be in the performance!!

Here are some photos from the last couple of days rehersals -