BBC presenter Owain Wyn Evans welcomes Wales 'arts resurgence' after panto win

BBC broadcaster and pantomime star Owain Wyn Evans has suggested Wales is experiencing a "resurgence in performing arts", as he urged theatre fans to look beyond the nation’s capital for great shows.

Evans, whose performance in Cinderella at New Theatre in Cardiff won him best panto newcomer at this year’s Pantomime Awards, told The Stage the Welsh had performance in their bones.

It comes shortly after Michael Sheen revealed his inaugural plans for the newly founded Welsh National Theatre.

Evans said: "Wales is the land of song, and performance has been in our hearts for many, many years – with folk dancing and all sorts of things. I do feel like the Welsh people are more connected in many ways to performance through folklore and our history.

"Wales having their resurgence in performing arts is amazing. But not just Cardiff – people have their eyes on Cardiff, but I’m from a mining town in west Wales and we have a miner’s theatre there which is putting on some greater stuff in Ammanford."

Evans encouraged audiences to investigate the theatre scene everywhere from "Aberystwyth and Bangor" to "Caernarfon and Mold".

Discussing his experience of starring in a pantomime, Evans, who presents for BBC Radio 2 as well as appearing on television in The One Show, claimed the quality of the art form was now "up there with West End performances".

"When I was on that stage in the New Theatre, just looking out, I thought: ’Wow, this is the closest so many people get to a West End performance.’ The quality of panto now is up there with West End performances, with the choreography, the musical direction, the props, the staging."

Evans added: "Panto changed my life. I’d love to return to it."