WHY hasn't Gwent cashed in on Wales' humour boom?

MIKE BUCKINGHAM meets Bob Robert writer who is challenging Cardiff and Swansea for our belly-laughs.

Mike Bickingham: March 20, 2001

BOB ROGERS, singer, poet, journalist, welsh-speaker, Pontypudlian and wit is leading the charge for Gwent against the citadels of Welsh humour in Cardiff and Swansea.

Welsh wit, as epitomised by such television programmes as Satellite City and Barry Welsh is Coming have traditionally drawn inspiration from what is seen as the Welsh heartlands.

'When writing 'A Town Like Arthur' I definitely had Gwent in mind, although Abergoch is fictional'

From the farmhouse which is home to Bob Rogers and his family you could lob a stone into Llandegfedd Reservoir. One of the several kittens which haunt the establishment is scratching at the window pane behind his chair.

'He's not terribly bright, that one,' Bob Rogers remarks in his sardonic deadpan, 'He's trying to work out why the air has gone stiff.'

A Town Like Arthur' is about some Valleys councillors who attend a conference in Stratford-Upon-Avon and can't help noticing that the place is stinking rich despite having no industry whatsoever other than William Shakespeare.

'When they go home they get a blacksmith to knock up some medieval artefacts which are placed near a body…..'

' I lived in Stratford myself for a while and in fact went to the same school as Shakespeare, King Henry VII Grammar School, it's a town with no natural resources at all, no coal, no iron, nothing, yet everyone you see is rolling in money

'The people of Abergoch discover the one big truth which is if you want to get rich nowadays you have to have a dead celebrity'

Was Caerleon's assiduous cultivation of its links with King Arthur the inspiration for his play?

'Actually, no. For some reason Cwm kept jumping into my mind although I can't think of any reason why it should have been Cwm particularly'

'A Town Like Arthur' is the first play I've had performed although I've been supporting myself writing for television ever since I left journalism (Bob Rogers worked for the Argus ten years ago and other local newspapers since)

'It was going to be a book but the story changed as I worked through it and became more visual. The thing then, of course was to get someone to put my play on.

'I was in Cardiff for the staging of an embryonic TV sketch show for HTV that I'd had some input to and met Michael Kelligan who was involved with the immensely popular 'Raw Nights at Dempseys' in the City Centre where plays are put on in a 'Script in Hand' format. I mentioned I had written a play and asked him if he would like to have a look at it. He agreed and subsequently called me to say, much to my delight, that it was going to be staged.

'Writing is a job of work and try as far as possible to work an ordinary office day. It's very tempting on a lovely early Spring day to get up and go for a walk but you have to stick to it.

'My training as a journalist, where I had to meet daily deadlines, is useful in that respect. It's been a steep learning curve though all the same.

'I can work wherever I happen to be. I carry a notebook around and jot down ideas and fragments of dialogue as they come to me. I used to be able to keep it all in my head but I'm 48 now and I think the hard drive is full.'

A Town Like Arthur is skilfully written with a fresh plot but the professional writer can't take hostages to fortune.

'There's always something in the pipeline - usually two or three things,' Bob Rogers says. 'I'm working on a sit-com at the moment.'

There are grounds for some optimism in Bob Rogers' life. His television work is increasing and that very morning a letter from a potential book publisher had arrived.

'On March 20 I shall be at Dempseys and hopefully I shall see people laughing at something I have written; I can't think of any other way of living my life that would give me quite that amount of satisfaction.'

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