Medway & Millis January 2019

Page 16 Medway & Millis Local Town Pages www.localtownpages.com January 2019
Millis Gets a Visit from The Man Who Won the War
By Jane Lebak
Actor Richard Elfyn has performed
all over the world and
won awards from the British
Academy of Film and Television
Arts, and now he can add Millis
High School to his list of achievements.
On December 11th, Elfyn
performed his acclaimed oneman
show about the life of Welsh
politician David Lloyd George at
the high school. Students had the
option of leaving class to view
the performance, and afterward,
Elfyn held a question and answer
session for students in the library.
The play, The Wizard, The
Goat, and the Man Who Won the War,
emerged as a partnership between
Elfyn and playwright D.J.
Britton. The play’s title comes
from three nicknames assigned
to David Lloyd George during
his political career, which lasted
from the late 1800s to 1945. The
play itself is set in 1938 on the
occasion of Lloyd George’s fiftieth
anniversary with his wife—
and his twenty-fifth anniversary
with his mistress.
D.J. Britton says of his subject,
““Lloyd George is a dramatist’s
dream, a mass of contradictions:
charismatic, intelligent, foolish,
impulsive, clinically decisive, and
painfully human.”
“I do like
him,” Elfyn
himself says of
Lloyd George.
“He did some
fantastic
things. But he
did some terrible
things as
well.”
Elfyn’s
working materials
consisted of one performer
(himself) and a very few
props: a bench, a flag, a cane,
and a book. He brought to life
the many chief players in David
Lloyd George’s story, changing
his voice and carriage for each
new figure who stepped into the
narrative.
“I’m from the same area as
Lloyd George,” he explains, adding
that his grandfather actually
met David Lloyd George and
found him “mesmerizing.”
Elfyn says of Lloyd George,
“He was the Welsh wizard--too
clever and too quick for all of
them. He ran rings around most
people, but he was devious too.”
During performances, Elfyn
wears a white wig, and afterward
he’s had audience members ask
him what he thought of the
play—not realizing he performed
it. After the first read-through at
Lloyd George’s historic home, Ty
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Richard Elfyn as David Lloyd George. Photo: James Davies
Newydd, his own mother said, “I
forgot it was you.”
As himself, Elfyn is soft-spoken
and enthusiastic. He’s previously
performed this play in France
and in Singapore as well as on a
Wales-wide tour. “It’s interesting
to me to see how it will go down
in America,” he says.
Americans may know Elfyn’s
work from the British series,
“The Crown.” He also speaks
fluent Welsh and re-voiced
Spongebob Squarepants in the
cartoon’s Welsh version.
Elfyn enjoyed his experience
with Millis’s students. “They
were wonderful. They were so
quiet, and most shows you do
there’s a fidget point, but that
didn’t happen.” (He did laugh
that someone in the front was
pretending to sleep. Whoever
you were, thanks for representing
the best of Millis.)
High school performances
have a special place in Elfyn’s
heart. “It was in school that I
became inspired.” Seeing a professional
actor was a pivotal moment,
and that was the first time
he considered attending drama
school. “I went home and said
I know exactly what I want to do
now.”
When asked if he might be
passing the torch to other young
students, he replies, “I’d like to
think so.”
Overall, though, his goal was
to invite the audience to explore
the nuances of greatness and the
interplay of moral strength and
weakness in a politically powerful
individual. “If they hadn’t heard
about Lloyd George, then at least
they have something that might
spark their interest in learning
about that period in time--in
learning from those huge mistakes
that were made during the
First World War.”
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