2012 Welsh Arts Review of the Year

Striking modern art, boundary-pushing theatre

and not forgetting an Olympic Games.

Quite a year.

Welcome to the BBC Wales Arts and Entertainments Review 2012.

Coming up, the outstanding contribution that the Cultural Olympiad made

to the arts scene in Wales this year...

Alongside the success of our athletes,

I think it was one of the really defining successes

of the Olympics this summer.

I will never be one of those women, Denis,

who stays silent and pretty on the arm of her husband.

..we hear from Alexandra Roach about playing the young Iron Lady.

Sharing a character with Meryl Streep...

I mean, one of the most amazing actresses of our generation.

COMMENTATOR: 'Roberts has a clear run to the line.

'It's Roberts with the opening try.'

..and revisit the glory of the Grand Slam,

through the eyes of the Welsh Rugby Union's writer-in-residence, Owen Sheers

It's pure theatre. It's actually better than theatre,

because the end of the script...

still isn't written.

It would have been hard not to spot that 2012 was a year

when the biggest show on Earth came to host city London

and gripped the hearts of a whole nation.

The Olympics and Paralympics wowed us with a summer of sporting greatness.

But when the UK was awarded the games,

there was a commitment to cultural events, as well as sporting,

for the whole country.

And so, from aeroplane fuselage-cum-art space

to fiery cauldrons and furnaces,

the promises of London 2012 became real,

as Wales welcomed the Cultural Olympiad.

The Cultural Olympiad was a UK-wide celebration

and Wales had a distinctive role to play.

It was distinctive in its Welshness, but yet,

it made a huge contribution to the whole.

London 2012 wove the idea of culture and education, alongside sport,

into this huge Olympiad, if you like.

One of the biggest projects as part of the celebrations was Adain Avion.

Artists Mark Rees and Sian Thomas

transformed an aeroplane fuselage into a gigantic mobile art space

that would house community art projects of all kinds.

Wouldn't it be fantastic to have a kind of porous,

portable piece of public art?

It's acting as a kind of magnet,

drawing people in and wanting to be part of it,

or seeing it or watching the events unfold.

It was decided that Adain Avion would be taken to Swansea,

Ebbw Vale, Llandudno and, finally, to the Eisteddfod Maes in Llandow.

Along the way, the projects varied greatly,

and each town brought its own unique interpretations into the space,

from covering the fuselage in Melin Tregwynt fabric,

to video installations, dance performances,

and some more modern art exhibits.

This really was art for the people in their own communities.

We had a target of 30,000 visitors, and we got 48, which was like...

And even when I say it now, I'm like, "48,000?!"

The community was the heart and soul of Adain Avion.

I think, without that, it wouldn't have moved, it wouldn't be mobile,

and it wouldn't have been pulled into town, literally.

It was an ambitious project,

though, you know, by God, did we deliver.

I think the sport was amazing. We all, as a nation, celebrated that.

But I think the art has also been extraordinary.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Adain Avion was only one of a plethora of different cultural events.

And in Denbigh, children worked in conjunction with Cadw

to unearth the story of Denbighshire's famous gold cape.

Mantell, or Cape, used the ancient artefact,

now housed at the British Museum,

as the inspiration for a fantastic visual performance.

Central to Mantell was the gold cape that was discovered in Denbighshire,

in the landscapes and the farmlands surrounding Denbigh Castle.

We had the great conclusion, in that there was a huge replica of Mantell

probably 1,000 times the size, which was lit up at the end,

which was an extraordinary sight.

The scale of the projects varied greatly.

None, perhaps, bigger than National Theatre Wales's contribution

to the London 2012 Festival.

In conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company,

in August, they commandeered a disused RAF hangar at St Athan,

to unveil their new multimedia production

of Shakespeare's Coriolanus.

..the poor itch of your opinion,

make yourselves scabs...

We decided we wanted to do it at scale,

because what it meant was that we could have an audience moving,

and audience involved in the action,

we could place the audience right at the heart of the action itself.

The audience were free to wander wherever they liked,

and to follow the action and to actually get involved,

and you felt like you were within the experience.

It was a truly immersive experience.

If any think brave death outweighs bad life...

..and that his country is dearer than himself,

let him, alone, or so many so minded,

wave thus to express his disposition...

and follow Marcius.

Where it worked fantastically is that people felt they were the Romans,

that they were the crowd, you know.

And I think, certainly, by the end,

their response was that they had been through something together.

Oh, Marcius.

-Marcius...

-I think the technological aspects of the play...

You know, the fact that there was a big screen

up at the end of the hangar,

which was playing the play back to us in real-time...

You know, we were listening to the dialogue on headphones.

Obviously, it was a huge space, all the actors were mic-ed up,

and we experienced it through headphones.

So, in one way, we were distanced from what was going on by technology,

but in another way, we were brought closer to the action,

because that's kind of what we're used to in the real world.

So, in many ways, walking around the hangar with headphones on,

watching screens, is kind of what people are used to, you know,

in the contemporary world.

A thousand welcomes.

We had a great understanding of the rhythms of the text

and the imagery within the text.

We were well on top of that, and that just gave us the ability

to use the microphones to the best extent.

GUNSHOT

HE BREATHES DEEPLY

There was always this kind of feeling at the end of the play,

"God, did they like it? Oh, my God, they're not doing anything."

And, of course, until the machine then fully switches off

and the lights come on, it was always just overwhelming.

You know... It just reminds you why you do it, you know?

Everybody was to be a bit of a rock star.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Alongside the success of our athletes,

I think it was one of the really defining successes of the Olympics this summer,

was what happened around the 2012 Festival.

There was just this seamless sense that culture

was part of our offer as a nation and, yeah,

an absolute triumph this summer, and a privilege to be part of it.

What I learnt was that there are hugely talented people,

working at community level,

working with young people, working with disabled people,

all over Wales, that I'd only heard about and never met.

It was the greatest privilege to work with them.

And it's an experience that will stay with me for ever.

When the Davies sisters of Llandinam

bequeathed their 260 paintings to the National Museum of Wales,

the took pride in the thought of them hanging majestically

to be admired by generations of art lovers like them.

Well, among that collection were seven seascapes

by the great J.M.W. Turner.

Or, at least, they thought they were by Turner.

But were they?

2012 would be the year when we found out.

At one time in their history,

each of the seven paintings had their authenticity questioned.

Doubts were first raised by famous London art dealers Agnew's

shortly after the bequest in 1955,

and there followed an examination by the Tate Gallery.

The results were not what the museum wanted to hear.

Only two of the oil paintings were accepted as genuine.

The other canvases were felt to be fakes, totally reworked,

or paintings by other hands.

Over the years, further experts have examined and commented on the paintings,

and some of them have been reattributed to Turner.

However, significant doubts remained,

particularly over Margate Jetty and Off Margate.

And to what extent, if any,

had the Beacon Light been over-painted by a different hand?

Beth McIntyre, one of the curators in the art department,

had, for some time, felt that we should re-examine that question

and come back to it.

We decided to work with the Tate again

and just have another reappraisal of the group.

And with the help of the BBC's Fake or Fortune programme,

the paintings were able to be reassessed.

The first thing we do is look down a stereo microscope at them

and we can already, at that level, start to look very minutely

at things like brushstrokes.

We can look at the layer structure,

so we can work out how the image has been built up.

For me, I felt that the way the paint was handled

was very consistent with late Turners that I'd seen.

The other thing is you can see that they've been executed at great speed.

For somebody to work as convincingly at great speed,

they would've had to have been very clever indeed.

So, I had no doubt, really, that they were Turners.

Adam was right. The paintings were deemed genuine.

It's very interesting to undertake this work for its own sake,

but it's also nice, in the sense that it's led to an important outcome.

You know, it's a significant moment for Turner's output as well,

and our knowledge of him,

so, you know, it's nice that there's been an overall outcome.

It's not only traditional art that's captivated audiences this year.

Between July and November, the streets of Swansea

played host to a series of contemporary exhibits

that summed up the soul of the city.

Art can kind of seem like it's a bit mysterious,

and people don't know what it's about.

It doesn't need to be that way. It CAN be engaging.

If it's right in front of them, where people work,

where people live, where people are doing their shopping,

it's in their public space,

so they're going to be curious about it,

and I think that's our kind of role, is to answer those questions.

The project brought together 14 artists

to create 12 pieces that represented Swansea,

in whatever way captured their imagination.

Swansea's a great city. It's got a lot of stories to tell.

The artists see that in the city.

They come and spend a few days here, they pick up on something

and then they come back with some great ideas.

Jock Mooney's piece, in particular, takes a complete different view.

He's picked up on different stories, he's reinvented the Swansea devil,

we've got an ice cream, representing Swansea's rich Gallo-Italian heritage,

and then you've got Bonnie Tyler, who's kind of like from Swansea Bay.

Again, kind of like slightly humorous, cartoonish, grotesque,

but it's kind of like more contemporary Swansea icons.

I think art should be fun. There's no need for it to be highbrow.

It can comment on social aspects of life,

it can comment on politics, on cultural issues, all the rest of it.

But I think at the core of it, it has to have some fun in it,

otherwise people are not going to be interested.

APPLAUSE

Artes Mundi, the biennial competition

for some of the world's most exciting contemporary artists,

once again this year stirred and encouraged debate

among fellow artists, critics and art lovers.

The wide-ranging work included water from a Mexican morgue,

photographs from random rolls of film,

as well as exhibits from the National Museum itself.

Seven artists battling it out for the £40,000 prize.

The work is presented in a wide range of media,

from tapestry, to installation, to film and video,

to sculpture and forms that look more traditional at first,

but there's lots of ideas and thinking behind the work.

It's given to an artist whose work is judged to be exceptional,

particularly related to considering the human condition.

The nature of the show means there's kind of themes that run through it.

This year, some very strong political and social themes run through,

and artists are exploring those themes in different ways in the works.

It's often the artist working with an audience

or a particular social group to create a dialogue around an idea,

and the work is really that dialogue taking place.

So, it's much more than a sort of stand-alone work of art

that can be easily understood.

It's more a discursive process,

where the audience and their opinions and thoughts

are integrated very much into the practice of the artists

and, by extension, the work itself.

This year, at a ceremony at the National Museum,

the £40,000 prize was awarded to Mexico's Teresa Margolles,

for her piece, Sonidos de la morgue, Sensory Of The Morgue.

Teresa Margolles...

Lots of her practice comes from working in a morgue in Mexico.

She deals with quite serious issues around death,

but creates very poignant and poetic works

around those very serious themes.

It's a new form of art and, indeed,

an awful lot of what's here is representative of a new form of art.

-What's your name, my friend?

-Gary.

Gary? OK. That's a good, proper name.

You know, you're not called Mitsubishi Chicane,

or any of that sort of nonsense.

-And what do you do for a living, Gary?

-I'm a police officer.

You're a police officer?!

LAUGHTER

Now, I'm looking around, and...

LAUGHTER

I think that the majority of this audience is slightly too young

-to feel the sort of withering resentment that

-I

-feel towards you...

LAUGHTER

..but it'll come.

For Carmarthenshire comedian Elis James,

2012 has certainly been a busy year.

As well as touring all over the country,

the comedian took his show, Speaking As A Mother, to Edinburgh,

to take part in the month-long Fringe Festival.

A little showbiz trick. Check that out. So...

I'm probably not going to be very subtle. "Ladies and gentlemen..."

But, yeah, I'm excited. I'm nervous. I feel sick. But it will be fine.

I've moved in with my girlfriend - hooray!

And as a consequence, nothing interesting has happened to me

for two and a half years. LAUGHTER

Literally nothing. Absolutely...

Last night for the festival, we had a night in.

Izzy cooked salmon, and it was really nice.

LAUGHTER

As well as the solo show, Elis was also part of The Committee Meeting,

a performance piece based on the distinctively Welsh tradition of the committee,

written by Elis, with fellow Welsh comedian Chris Corcoran.

We've had tons of fun doing it in Wales and, you know,

we just think that there's a good Edinburgh show in this as well.

There are definitely things about Welshness

that don't cross the border, in terms of comedic references.

But, certainly, I think that was a problem

with some Welsh comedians in days gone by,

that their material was too Welsh-centric,

in a way that I don't think Scottish or Irish comedians suffered from.

The show is centred on audience participation,

with everyone in the room members of the committee.

-Keep going!

-HE CHEERS, AUDIENCE CLAPS

It's so different doing it in Risca, to how it is in Edinburgh.

-What's your name?

-Magnus.

Good old Magnus. Oh, dear, dear, dear.

-I knew your great, great grandfather.

-Oh, did you?

Yes, what was he called again? Tony?

-That's the one.

-Yeah, that's it. Tony. He was a regular at this club.

-Oh, yes.

-Oh, yes, he was.

He did, he did, yes.

LAUGHTER

He's the one that's played along the most so far, isn't he?

Yes, he's played along so much, he's actually put me off a little bit.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

That was loads of fun. I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.

And if they're that good, I'm going to have a lovely time, I think.

And a lovely time he went on to have.

And for his grand finale, a sold-out comedy showcase.

I'm a real daydreamer. For instance, yesterday

I walked into my kitchen in the morning and I picked up a tea towel.

And then I walked to Tesco with that tea towel

-thinking it was a bag for

-BLEEP

-life.

I think I have proven a point to myself.

This is the first year where I have written about how I feel

as opposed to just telling stories.

All the greatest comics of all time, that's what they were doing.

When it goes well, it's really great. And it has gone well.

This has been a lot of fun.

The year in classical music has been one of change.

The start of the 2012/13 season for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

saw the players welcome their new principal conductor Thomas Sondergard.

Whilst for Welsh National Opera, it's been the first full year with David Pountney at the helm.

And under his guidance, WNO welcomed theatre director, Annabel Arden,

to direct their production of La Boheme.

Annabel Arden is a director who comes from a theatre tradition.

She brings a very sensitive, obviously female,

theatre director's understanding of all those young people in La Boheme.

She really works very hard to make them into tangible, believable people.

Some people think you don't see believable people on the opera stage.

Well, sometimes you do. I think La Boheme was a case in point.

With glittering reviews, it was clear that WNO had struck the right chord once more.

We are in the business of communicating ideas to other people.

That's what we do.

And so when one realises that that communication has worked

and that people are appreciative and people are thrilled with the message

that we're able to convey with music and drama,

then that's great because we've done our job.

The success continued with a revival of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte.

which was set in the quirky world of 1960s Barry Island.

Then in July, the company were gifted £1.3 million by the Getty Foundation.

Having visited a recording of Usher House,

the new opera by composer in the family, Gordon Getty,

David decided he'd like to premiere the piece in Wales.

The money gifted would be the resources to allow this.

The decision certainly raised some eyebrows in the operatic world,

with the critics immediately asking

whether Getty was paying for performances of his own operas.

David remained adamant that this wasn't the case.

Mr Getty doesn't pay for his own pieces.

So we talked about this and we came up with a scheme

whereby we would do four contemporary works,

all of which would be British premieres.

His piece would be one of those.

And his family trust would support the whole series.

The story of the next two or three years

is going to be how flexible, how savvy, how clever,

how smart, how inventive we are, because there's a lot to give over the next years.

Cape Town Opera also set up home in the Wales Millennium Centre

for the European premiere of their opera, The Mandela Trilogy,

charting the life of the great leader.

HE SINGS INDISTINCTLY

One of Wales's greatest modern composers, Karl Jenkins,

marked his 70th birthday in style with a new composition, The Pacifiers,

entering the classical chart at number one.

# I see your beauty

# I hear your needs. #

From red carpet premieres to the royal blue of The Iron Lady's dress,

links between Wales and film have been strong this year.

Welsh acting talent blossomed once more

and the landscape continued to be a go-to place for location directors.

In this hall the normal rules don't apply.

Everything out there doesn't count.

I want to put on a show

that William Shakespeare and David Bowie would be proud of.

A Swansea comprehensive School was the setting for Mark Evans's film,

Hunky Dory, which saw its cinematic release in 2012.

A bittersweet nostalgic story of a free-spirited English teacher,

played by Hollywood star Minnie Driver,

trying to turn her pupils onto Shakespeare using the music David Bowie.

# It's a god-awful small affair

# To the girl with the mousy hair

# But her mummy is yelling no

# And her daddy is... #

In one of the biggest films of the year, Ammanford-born Alexandra Roach

shared the screen with double Oscar winner Meryl Streep...

Steady the bus, old girl.

..as she took on the part of the young Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

Once I got cast I knew that this was going to be a big project.

To be sharing a character with Meryl Streep, I mean,

one of the most amazing actresses of our generation.

So just to be with her and to have intelligent conversations

with such an inspiring woman, I'll never forget it.

One's life must matter, Denis,

beyond all the cooking and the cleaning and the children.

One's life must mean more than that.

I cannot die washing up a teacup.

I mean it. Dennis.

Say you understand.

That's why I want to marry you, my dear.

A film about Margaret Thatcher wouldn't be complete

without highlighting the key moment of the 1984/85 miners' strike.

For those miners in Alexandra's home town of Ammanford,

little did they know that the young girl amongst them would grow up

to play her on the silver screen.

'I come from a mining town myself.'

My grandfather was underground since he was 12.

And my father was a policeman during the strikes.

So it was a big moment in the Roach family when the mines shut down.

But I had to put all of those judgements to one side.

It's not my job as an actress to judge Margaret Thatcher.

But I needed to bring the character to life, really.

Shakespearean classics weren't the only thing

on National Theatre Wales's roster this year.

Their production of The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning,

tracing the early life in school at Haverfordwest

of the US soldier accused of spreading information to Wikileaks,

received positive reviews all round.

Bradley Manning is a sign of the times.

Bradley Manning was really interesting because I actually watched it over the live web stream.

There were links to chat blogs so you could look at conversations

that Bradley Manning had had with his friends.

It didn't really give any easy answers.

It didn't give any clear black and white impressions

of what we should think as an audience. It gave us that ability to think for ourselves,

which obviously is what probably Bradley Manning wanted.

When love, when? When love, when?

The company also took to Swansea's Patti Pavillion for a collaboration

with Frantic Assembly Theatre Company for a performance

of Little Dogs, starring the great Sian Phillips,

her first time with National Theatre Wales.

I don't know what would have happened to Welsh theatre

had it not been for NTW, really. They just make shows for the people. And it's of the people.

It's our company, it's our nation.

And I think that vision is exciting.

It excites actors who are getting on a bit,

who, in a sense, have the right to be a little bit cynical about the world and life,

and make them excited about new productions and what's going to happen next.

There are some fantastic talented people working in Wales

making this kind of work. We're able to kind of cherry pick

from a really, really strong pool of people.

July this year saw a ground-breaking collaboration between three of the UK's leading dance companies.

Scottish Ballet, English National Ballet and National Dance Company Wales

came together to celebrate the arrival of London 2012.

Dance GB was a unique opportunity to see three national companies

perform specially-commissioned works by international choreographers.

Each piece celebrating the breathtaking power

and athleticism of incredible dancers.

MUSIC: "Bolero" by Ravel

For us, actually collaborating with two other much bigger national companies and ballet companies,

was hugely exciting.

But actually an opportunity for raising our profile

and actually say, although we're smaller, we're of the same quality.

We just have a different kind of product.

Dream was created for National Dance Company Wales

by the eminent choreographer, Christopher Bruce.

He loved working with our dancers.

He would throw an idea, a sporting image,

so the dancers would be throwing a javelin or a boxing match,

and allow the dancers to explore that physically themselves.

Then he would select and choose what he wanted.

And Chris then very carefully put these threads together

and challenged the dancers to entertained the audiences with the work.

"Intimate, human and funny" - The Observer's verdict.

"And the enchanting Dream, the most appealing piece of the three," said the Telegraph.

Great reviews all round for the National Dance Company.

It was commented upon that actually of the three national companies,

that if there were medals being awarded, we would win the gold.

So we were very proud.

And it's been a huge critical success and audience success.

Jazz, rock, pop and hymn singing.

Artists on the worldwide stage and artists on the reality TV stage.

Contemporary Welsh music in 2012 has certainly been a mixed bag.

# Life goes on, it gets so heavy

# The wheel breaks the butterfly. #

The year started with Only Boys Aloud reaching the final

of Britain's Got Talent. They finished third

but following their success, have recorded an album with Sony.

# Could be para, para

# Paradise... In para, para

# Paradise

# Could be para, para... #

Started by Tim Rhys-Evans

as a way to bring together boys from all over the valleys,

many of whom have never sung before,

the year has underlined the amazing journey that the choir's been on.

# Para, para

# Paradise...

# Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh... #

If you're a lad that's not achieved very much in your life,

then all of a sudden you're making an album with Sony,

that's going to change your perceptions of yourself.

The festival scene was a vibrant one in Wales again this year.

Wakestock saw some big names hit the glorious North Wales coastline.

And despite the rain, Green Man Festival brought its chilled out vibe back to the Brecon Beacons.

The capital city welcomed the fourth annual Soundtrack Festival,

which highlights the important connection between a film soundtrack and its pictures.

A particular highlight this year was Vincent Moon,

the French music video director,

who's been around the world just filming, like, shamanic rituals

and music in dying languages, out in the wilds of Russia

and Chechnya at the moment.

He came in and did a session which blew everybody's mind.

I've been making films

about music, live music, for many years

and in the past four years I've been travelling

and researching on mostly ancient music, traditional, sacred music

and I make short films and I put them on the internet.

I'm just the traveller

and I just find films as a great way to interact with people.

The festival this year saw the premiere of Kelly and Victor,

a destructive love story first captured in prose

by Wales-based author, Niall Griffiths

and now transformed into a film by Welsh director, Kieran Evans.

Set against the gritty backdrop of Toxteth in Liverpool,

it follows a young couple on the stormy path of their intense love affair.

# And those are honest words... #

The film features the soundtrack provided by some of the UK's

most acclaimed artists, included Mercury music prize nominated

King Creosote and Jon Hopkins,

as well as the gifted guitar work of Bill Ryder-Jones.

A lot of it was shot around North Wales

and it was beautiful, stunning and the music just really

so integrated that you wouldn't notice it on a normal cinema viewing,

but that's what Soundtrack is all about.

We try and keep it as accessible to grass-roots film-makers as well.

We want them to meet the talent.

We bring in these people to Cardiff for a reason and we want them

to meet these guys and get as much out of it as possible.

We try to be just as broad with our film programme as well

and we've had a really good year.

# ..he wrote the stars... #

One of the new festivals that I really enjoyed visiting this year

was Festival No 6, which was located in quite an unusual location in Portmeirion.

We were all saying to each other, you just wouldn't believe that it was possible to put a festival on

in such a beautiful place but thankfully the musical crowds that went

were very respectful of the place

and there was wonderful small stages and pockets of activity

in the woods and under the castle, or in the castle lobby.

It was a place of intrigue and wonder.

So some new talent to look out for as well next year.

Masters In France might surprise us a little bit more...

# I'm going to call up some of my buddies... #

..after they had huge success with an IKEA advert

at the tail end of 2012 and I hope they do follow it up

with some success.

# Put on a heck of a show... #

Finally, the world's attention will be turning on Wales at the end of next year

when WOMEX, an international festival will come to Cardiff

and I think the launch night is going to be curated by Cery's Matthews

and it's going to be wonderful.

Do look out for all the news and gigs connected to WOMEX next year

because I know it'll put Wales on the map in a totally new and fresh way.

At the beginning of 2012 the future for the Brecon Jazz Festival looked bleak.

In May though it was announced that Cardiff-based events and media company Orchard,

had been awarded the tender to operate the famous festival.

We knew we were taking on a big challenge.

We had a short period of time to deliver something

that we hoped would be a good quality

and people would be pleased. It would bear the Brecon Jazz brand.

Welsh jazz pianist extraordinaire Huw Warren was chosen

as the artist in residence.

As well as performing, he was responsible for programming the festival.

As a festival, Brecon is all about being

an international festival and being a Welsh Festival.

Personally, I tried to reflect both of those sides.

The shape of Brecon Jazz was that it would be

a really wide-ranging, balanced programme.

So that there would be something for everybody there.

# The moment I wake up... #

On the Friday night, the Market Hall was set alight

with headliner, Dionne Warwick.

# I say a little prayer

# Say a little prayer for you... #

And, over the weekend, the smaller venues around Brecon sang out with

the sound of some of the world's best jazz artists,

some upcoming talent and some street entertainment.

I think the festival set out to provide a variety of different

types of music and different settings

and almost providing for different audiences.

We were famously quoted in one of the press,

Brecon's regained its mojo and I think what we want to do is give it back its mojo.

# Celebrate... #

This year the annual Hay Festival welcomed speakers

from all corners of the globe to the world-famous event held in May and June.

October this year saw the publication of the Burton Diaries,

some of the 400,000 words that the revered actor kept in pocket books and desk diaries.

Revealing some of Burton's most private moments,

they were compiled into a book by Professor Chris Williams.

This really is Burton in his own words.

He reads in a voraciously...

It's history, biography, current affairs, sport, crime writing,

novels, poetry and not just reading books

but then feeding into his diary writing,

lines from Shakespeare, Gerard Manley Hopkins,

Dylan Thomas, Alan Lewis.

It's speckled throughout the diaries that kind of engagement with literature.

He talks about wanting to be a writer, wanting to be a don.

I think I made a great mistake in becoming an actor

because I think my real desire would have been to be a scholar.

'I'm very excited.

'I am as thrilled by the English language as I am

'by a lovely woman, or dreams.

'Green as dreams and deep as death.

'Christ, I'm off and running and will lecture them

'until iambic pentameter comes out of their nostrils.'

In July, the Welsh Book Of The Year prize was awarded

to Patrick McGuinness for his debut novel, The Last Hundred Days.

Set in Romania, it centres on dissidents, black marketeers,

spies and ordinary people as they all watch each other

as Europe's most paranoid regime plays out its bloody end game.

In the Welsh language prize,

Jon Gower took the accolade with Y Storiwr, The Storyteller,

a wonderful tale of Gwydion McGideon

and his amazing storytelling ability.

The international Dylan Thomas prize,

that's awarded to authors under 30,

was this year presented to Californian Maggie Shipstead for Seating Arrangements,

the story of a high society wedding

set on a fictional island off New England.

What it was about her work, is it seems really effortless

in this fluent voice.

The story was never encumbered by any limits on the author's behalf

because the voice was still not formed fully.

So she definitely went on to win

and I really hope she has a great year in the name of Dylan Thomas.

What's the secret of good sports writing?

Is it putting across the facts?

The whens, the how manys, the statistics, the results?

Or is it about conveying to people who already know what happened,

who may indeed have been there.

A story so compelling that they forget everything that they thought they knew?

That's the challenge that's faced Owen Sheers this year.

As the inaugural writer in residence at the Welsh Rugby Union,

he's been on the journey that taken him to a place where

he really can say, "I know cos I was there".

COMMENTATOR: Williams leads the charge. Croft goes back.

Scott Williams tries!

For the Welsh fans, Scott's try had provided

the kind of moment for which every rugby enthusiast hopes.

A moment when the emotional contours of thousands move in exact alignment,

switchbacking in just seven seconds from the anxiety of an English attack

to the sudden jubilation of Scott's kick-through and score.

I guess the aspirations for the role were always

to take the writing somewhere else, other than sports journalism.

There are lots of excellent sports journalists

who are already writing about rugby.

I was aware that I had this incredibly privileged access.

Rugby is itself theatre, it's balletic,

it's aspirational and to write about it in a way

that gets to its spirituality,

to its soul, I'd say,

you need a proper artist.

That's the breakthrough that they wanted.

Owen has recorded his residency in a book,

Calon: A Journey Into The Heart Of Welsh Rugby

which will be published in the Spring.

The drama of a rugby match, it's pure theatre.

It's better than theatre because the end of the script,

it still isn't written.

It's being written in every single second.

How do you capture that in prose when everyone knows the outcome?

I found that a real challenge but a very exciting challenge too.

WHISTLE BLOWS

The prize that's conjured from the unexpected,

the breaking of the pattern that makes the pattern more beautiful.

To experience this jeopardy, to be at the mercy of the sports vagaries

is why we watch rugby. To care and to feel.

..and Wales start the celebrations.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

What I think Owen is going to do in his book, Calon,

is to give people back that sense of emotion

that they had at the time. It'll be very accessible,

but I think it'll also be thoughtful.

If a reader can feel engaged with a player, or a coach,

on a deeper level, then they become interested in them as a person.

Hopefully they'll become interested in following them

through that story.

And, of course, despite recent losses, 2012 was a grand slam year.

A very good year, then, to be a writer in residence.

When I've interviewed the players about the grand slam, a lot of them

talk about belief. It was almost infectious.

I started to believe that very early on, as well.

It's such an emotional game in Wales

and yet to play it well at the top-flight level, I'm aware,

although undoubtedly the players feel that emotion,

they have to pare it away to really play to the best of their ability.

So much of what I've been doing has been about being there

and about turning up and observing.

You might hear a line, you might see something at the fringes.

It's very rarely when the main events are happening.

Unless you're one of the men crossing that whitewash

onto that pitch, you can never exactly know how it is.

We have turnover ball.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Penalty to Wales! It's all over.

The Welsh players celebrate.

Wales have won the Grand Slam.

I do feel as though I've been lucky enough to sit at the shoulder,

or you could say at the shoulder of giants, in terms of the Welsh backline.

And to certainly see things through a player's perspective

and I hope I've got some of that across on the page.

Owen is our man inside. I mean, that's the real thing.

He's our heart and he's our mind and he's our voice

and he's articulating, I hope in his book, what it is the people of Wales

will want to take with them and, how can I put this, to go to bed with.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

As the curtain falls on 2012,

we can look back on a lively year in the Welsh arts world.

And as 2013 begins, there's plenty to look forward to.

Some of the world's best voices will battle it out

to become Cardiff Singer Of The World.

Caernarvon's Bedwyr Williams will take his live comedic talent

and exhibits to represent Wales at the Venice Biennale.

We can look forward to a raft of ground-breaking new work

from our National Theatre and dance companies, as well as plenty

of performances from our finest actors, singers and entertainers.

Happy New Year!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd