By Megan
Link: https://www.newperspectives.co.uk/?idno=1168&s=82
(available in English and Welsh)
Available until: Unknown
This Place Print is about a sixteen year old girl called
Mary Jones. For years, she has dreamed of owning her own Welsh Bible. A kind
lady called Mrs Evans has allowed Mary to read her Bible and learn the stories
but Mary really wants one all of her own.
She hoped at first that it might not cost very much money but a visiting reverend told her that it would be very expensive and that she would have to travel a long way. 25 miles, all the way to the Bala.
It has taken Mary a long time but at last, she has enough
money and she is ready to begin her journey. She leaves early. She has no
transport of her own and she has to walk all the way. As she walks, she enjoys
looking at the countryside around her and listening to the sounds. A lot of the
things she sees remind her of the stories and places she has read about in Mrs
Evans’ Bible. She tells us some of the stories as she walks.
Writer David Rudkin has described Mary’s journey really
well. He knows it well because he walked it all himself so he saw all the
places she would have seen. It is difficult sometimes to tell a very religious
story because not everyone has the same religion and some have none at all.
Some people want to share their religion with other people and try to help them
to believe the same things but a lot of people feel very uncomfortable with
this.
But this story does not feel like anyone is trying to make
us believe anything, except that a girl called Mary really is walking 25 miles
to buy a Bible. Director Jack McNamara has made the story a very positive one
and happy one. It does not sound preachy at all. It is about a girl who is
talking about something she really loves and is doing something exciting which
is really important to her. The fact it is a Bible is very important to Mary
but I think as listeners we just hear she is an excited girl who is making one
of her dreams come true and I think everyone can relate to being excited and
having dreams. The stories she tells will be important to some people in a
religious way but they are also lovely stories.
I love Adam McCready’s sound design too. You can hear Mary’s
footsteps and the birds singing and I like how the sounds change as it suggests
different times of day and it helps give the sense that time is passing.
Hedydd Dylan is the actor in the English and Welsh version
of the story. She was in Emmerdale for a while and she was in the
Globe’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor so she is a very
versatile performer. She tells Mary’s story really well. The Welsh version is
especially beautiful to listen to because the Welsh accent suits excitement
really well and the natural changes in the pitch of the Welsh make Ms Dylan
sound even younger than when she speaks English. She is a grown-up but it is
easy to imagine she is only a little bit older than my sister Louise. The music
of the language sounds really lovely with the music of the birds singing.
This is a really lovely Place Print. It is
beautifully-written and performed and it is exciting because you really want
Mary to get to the Bala safely and get her Bible because she is such a nice
person. Some of the Place Prints are quite scary but this one isn’t really scary
at all.
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