X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent… They’re all pale imitations of something the Welsh dreamed up over 800 years ago, just in case someone got round to inventing television. That something is the National Eisteddfod of Wales, the biggest mobile cultural festival in Europe.
And they will literally be singing in the vales this year as the 2010 festival, the National Eisteddfod of Wales: Blaenau Gwent and the Heads of the Valleys 2010, comes to Ebbw Vale.
In National Eisteddfod 2010 (Saturday, August 7, BBC Two) former Wales rugby captain, commentator and columnist Eddie Butler steps well out of his comfort zone to present a programme of highlights of a week’s competitions – as well as trying to fathom what on earth an ‘eisteddfod’ is all about.
Ebbw Vale, in the eastern valleys of Wales, is an area proud of its industrial past – iron, coal, steel – and the people whose radical politics it helped forge – people like Michael Foot and Nye Bevan, founding father of the National Health Service. It’s also fiercely proud of its cultural heritage, which must partly explain why this predominantly English-speaking area has invited tens of thousands of Welsh speakers to set up their great pink pavilion on the site of the former steelworks and sing, play, write and perform their hearts out for the coveted accolade of ‘National Winner’.
Eddie meets up with a host of competitors, visitors and performers including Only Boys Aloud, a group of youngsters brought together to reinvigorate the local choral tradition by none other than local boy, Tim Rhys-Evans, Musical Director of the BBC’s hugely successful Last Choir Standing winners, Only Men Aloud.
Join Eddie for half an hour of culture and fun, with a distinctly Welsh accent.
NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD 2010
BBC Two, Saturday, August 7, 5.30pm
bbc.co.uk/eisteddfod
