{"id":2142879,"date":"2025-11-08T14:12:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T14:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2142879"},"modified":"2025-11-08T14:12:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T14:12:17","slug":"this-deliciously-dark-comedy-about-a-notorious-welsh-criminal-is-a-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/this-deliciously-dark-comedy-about-a-notorious-welsh-criminal-is-a-triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"This deliciously dark comedy about a notorious Welsh criminal is a triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">By the early 20th century, petty criminal John Jones had become a local folk hero due to his notorious prison escapes, earning the nicknames Coch Bach y Bala (The Little Redhead of Bala) and the Welsh Houdini. Theatr Clwyd\u2019s <em>The Red Rogue of Bala <\/em>imagines what happened when he went back to north Wales after breaking out of Ruthin Gaol for the final time in 1913. This debut play by Chris Ashworth-Bennion (<em>The Telegraph<\/em>\u2019s former TV and radio editor) is a darkly humorous meditation on how legends are created and the things and people we choose to believe in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Set in a local pub, with the First World War looming, the poacher and thief regales the punters with mythologised tales of his audacious escapades, captivating them and the audience alike. Yet as the illicit love affair between Jones\u2019s son and the English landowner\u2019s daughter is revealed, filial loyalty is tested when Jones Jr is asked to sell his father out and hand him over to the police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">With the appearance of a giant cauldron and the mock trial of a dead badger, the play has overtones of Joe Orton and Martin McDonaugh\u2019s black comedy, Dan Jones\u2019s production mixes brio and pathos, enhanced by the evocative period costumes and Mark Bailey\u2019s sparse bar room set design.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-3 right-3 size-10 md:size-[50px] lg:inset-0 lg:size-full lg:bg-transparent\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-0 right-0 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed inset-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-white hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p>Simon Holland Roberts as petty criminal John Jones &#8211; Kirsten McTernan<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Reminiscent of <em>Jerusalem<\/em>\u2019s Rooster Byron, the roguish character of Jones is played with a Falstaffian swagger by Simon Holland Roberts. Beneath the self-aggrandisement, he is at once rogue, magician and charlatan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There are many other fine performances. Qasim Mahmood is suitably pompous as the Kipling-quoting landowner Reginald Jones-Bateman while Julian Lewis Jones is both delightfully dour and histrionic as the cuckolded publican Sian Pritchard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">With the recent cases of criminals mistakenly released from British prisons, <em>The Red Rogue of Bala <\/em>is oddly timely. This lyrical rumination on incarceration and emancipation, the ever-changing nature of community, land ownership and power speaks to the moment with a moral urgency. In Ashworth-Bennion, Denbighshire has found a critic-turned-playwright intent on spreading some theatrical stardust.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>Theatr Clwyd until Nov 22; <\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.com\/v3\/__https:\/\/www.theatrclwyd.com\/event\/the-red-rogue-of-bala__;!!F0Stn7g!BpPIAqRvt4O465W-7epLgHBbjfXf6Ff6x2EudQzhyZMTWLhGhCH0rNEPaiSjlhPV9b-WAYcjtfs3Oiq0nVgr4VUr1pxzag%24\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:theatreclwyd.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\"><em>theatreclwyd.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/customer\/subscribe\/01doysa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><b>Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the early 20th century, petty criminal John Jones had become a local folk hero due to his notorious prison escapes, earning the nicknames Coch Bach y Bala (The Little Redhead of Bala) and the Welsh Houdini. Theatr Clwyd\u2019s The Red Rogue of Bala imagines what happened when he went back to north Wales after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2142880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[409078,409080,409077,409081,409079,409076],"class_list":["post-2142879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-chris-ashworth-bennion","tag-dan-jones","tag-john-jones","tag-jones-jr","tag-julian-lewis-jones","tag-theatr-clwyd"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/This-deliciously-dark-comedy-about-a-notorious-Welsh-criminal-is.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142881,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142879\/revisions\/2142881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2142880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2142879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2142879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}