A year ago, actor Michael Sheen pledged to launch a new national theatre for Wales using his own money. He’s now preparing to star in its first full production and says he wants the company to be a major force in Wales, the rest of the UK and beyond.
When a “window of opportunity” opened to start a new national theatre in Wales, Michael Sheen was, by his own admission, the only person who could make it happen.
“I don’t mean because of any innate brilliance that I have,” he explains hastily, “but just because of the position I was in.
“I could kick-start it myself financially, I could pay for things to begin with, I had a profile, I could get media interest, I could open doors in terms of getting people involved.”
Indeed, as one of Wales’s (and the UK’s) most admired actors, he has the requisite profile and powers of persuasion, and has pockets that are deeper than most.
He has previously put his hands in those pockets to fund projects like the Homeless World Cup, and to write off hundreds of people’s debts, and has been vocal about cuts to Welsh culture.
So when the old National Theatre of Wales closed at the end of 2024 following funding cuts from the Arts Council of Wales, Sheen came up with a plan for a replacement. His vision was for a company that would “do bigger things that are more expensive, and have more ambition, and are bolder” than its predecessor.
“Ultimately, I found myself arguing for something that I realised I was in the best position to deliver. Because ultimately, what I was arguing for was quite perverse in that it was flying completely in the face of the prevailing winds,” he admits.
“And people would quite rightly go, ‘Well, how can we… that can’t happen, that just can’t happen’.
“And I realised that it could happen, but only if I did it.”