The Green, Green Grass of Home: Mr Jones An Aberfan Story - Finborough Theatre
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 young rugby enthusiast who has just left school and works at the local bakery. He dreams of rugby greatness and boasts to family friend and nurse Angharad Price (Mabli Gwynne), whom he claims as his girlfriend. His love is unrequited, but Angharad enjoys his company on her way to or from work. She longs to leave Aberfan for Australia and retrain as a lawyer.
But the disaster shatters these dreams. Stephen searches desperately for his younger brother in the hospital, and Angharad battles the overwhelming task of treating survivors and consoling them. The play handles this delicately and builds to an emotional climax.
The piece evokes a time, a place, and a sense of belonging, amplified by two extraordinary performances and woven with audio testimonies of those who lived through it. Holmes plays the self-assured young man with his future ahead of him, while Gwynne, a practical nurse, harbours dreams of another life. Both convincingly portray young people whose worlds shift in the wake of tragedy.
The title of the piece comes from the fact that 10% of those who lost their lives had the surname Jones. As the piece closes and Tom Jones’s “The Green Green Grass of Home” plays, it underscores the themes of home and of two people adrift by events beyond their control.
Directed by Michael Neri, My Jones by Liam Holmes continues at the Finborough Theatre until 22 November.
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Photos by Ali Wright
