National Theatre Wales festival to mark 70 years of NHS

Gruff Rhys will write, record and release a new song paying tribute to the NHS

A month-long festival to celebrate the 70th birthday of the NHS will form part of National Theatre Wales' 2018 season.

The NHS, founded by Ebbw Vale MP and UK Health Minister Aneurin "Nye" Bevan, was born on 5 July 1948.

Singer Gruff Rhys will release a song, comedian Elis James will host a comedy night and a production involving hydrotherapy pools will tour schools and hospitals.

It will be Kully Thirarai's first full season as artistic director.

She said the festival, which will take place in July, had been inspired by some of the founders, staff and patients of the NHS.

Splish Splash will be performed in schools and hospitals across Wales

Performances will include Splish Splash, by theatre company Oily Cart, which will be a multi-sensory, underwater, touring production for young people.

Hydrotherapy pools will be transformed by underwater lighting, clouds of bubbles drifting from below, curtains of perfumed spray, and live music played on floating pipes, with a sound that can be felt as much as heard.

There will be three versions: one for those with profound and multiple learning disabilities, another for those on the autism spectrum, and a third for the deaf and blind.

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Gruff Rhys, of Super Furry Animals fame, will write, record and release a new song paying tribute to the NHS on its 70th birthday.

And there will be a night of comedy - Laughter is the Best Medicine - compered by actor and comedian Elis James, at the Lyric Theatre in his hometown of Carmarthen.

Elis James will host a comedy night in his hometown of Carmarthen

The festival will also include Love Letters to the NHS, a series of five, new, solo shows written by five writers and performed in community spaces across Wales.

And National Theatre Wales will team up with others to create a site-specific, interactive and tactile dance piece about the therapeutic aspects of dance and the social place of the body.

Following the company's 2017 listening project, in which they gathered stories about people's experiences with the NHS in Wales, one of the seven events will be a participative, live event reflecting the stories told from around Wales.

National Theatre Wales will also commission a visual artist to make a brand new work inspired by the volume of data generated by NHS Wales.

Kully Thiarai was appointed as National Theatre Wales' artistic director last year

Ms Thiarai said: "Our 2018 season is all about people and places.

"We're inviting audiences to join us in locations across Wales and take a moment to walk in others' shoes, be they south Asian women or migrants from all over the world, NHS staff or patients past and present.

"These productions will be experimental, political, diverse and provocative.

"All of them will explore the human condition, what effect places have on our identities, and our impressions of others' identities."

Other events for the 2018 season include:

• Two productions reflecting on the migrant experience in and beyond Wales

• A three year collaboration between National Theatre Wales and theatre-makers Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes who will join the company as its first associate artists.