Items15The creator’s order
  1. 1Michael SheenMichael SheenBorn 5 Feb 1969Michael Sheen staged The Passion across his home town of Port Talbot over Easter weekend in 2011, using hundreds of local residents, and has kept returning to Wales ever since. When National Theatre Wales closed in 2024 he personally funded a new Welsh National Theatre company, whose first…0i
  2. 2Bad BunnyBad BunnyBorn 10 Mar 1994Bad Bunny's 2025 album Debí Tirar Más Fotos leaned on Puerto Rican plena, bomba and jíbaro music, and he followed it with a 30-night residency in San Juan from July to September 2025, opening with shows reserved for island residents. Estimates of its economic impact run to hundreds of millions of…0i
  3. 3Sally WainwrightSally WainwrightBorn 11 Sept 1963Sally Wainwright set Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack in the Calder Valley of West Yorkshire where she grew up, and filmed them there, giving the area a screen identity and a steady flow of visitors to Shibden Hall and Hebden Bridge. Her dialogue keeps the local voice intact…0i
  4. 4Richard HawleyRichard HawleyBorn 17 Jan 1967Richard Hawley has written about Sheffield for his whole solo career, naming albums after local places such as Coles Corner and Lady's Bridge. His songs became the musical Standing at the Sky's Edge, set across three generations on the city's Park Hill estate, which premiered at the Crucible in…0i
  5. 5Ian McMillan (poet)Ian McMillan (poet)Born 21 Jan 1956Ian McMillan, the self-styled Bard of Barnsley, has presented BBC Radio 3's poetry and language programme The Verb since 2002 and spent decades championing Yorkshire dialect and South Yorkshire voices in workshops, schools and on air. He has been poet in residence for Barnsley FC and Humberside…0i
  6. 6Cerys MatthewsCerys MatthewsBorn 11 Apr 1969Cerys Matthews, formerly of Catatonia, has recorded albums of Welsh-language and traditional Welsh songs, including Tir (2013), and co-founded The Good Life Experience festival in north-east Wales in 2014. Her long-running BBC Radio 6 Music show often features Welsh artists and folk music. She…0i
  7. 7Gruff RhysGruff RhysBorn 18 Jul 1970Gruff Rhys's band Super Furry Animals released Mwng (2000), sung entirely in Welsh, which reached the UK top twenty and became one of the best-selling Welsh-language albums ever. He has kept writing in Welsh alongside English throughout his solo career, and his film and album American Interior…0i
  8. 8Bryn TerfelBryn TerfelBorn 9 Nov 1965Bryn Terfel, the Welsh-speaking bass-baritone from a farming family in Gwynedd, ran the Faenol Festival near Bangor for more than a decade from 2000, bringing international opera singers and Welsh performers together in north Wales. He still sings Welsh hymns and folk songs on the world's stages…0i
  9. 9Taika WaititiTaika WaititiBorn 16 Aug 1975Taika Waititi shot Boy (2010) in the East Coast Māori community where he spent part of his childhood, casting local children, and it became one of New Zealand's most successful home-grown films. He later co-created Reservation Dogs with Sterlin Harjo, a series about Indigenous teenagers in rural…0i
  10. 10Lin-Manuel MirandaLin-Manuel MirandaBorn 16 Jan 1980Lin-Manuel Miranda took Hamilton to San Juan in January 2019, starring in it again himself, with proceeds going to the Flamboyan Arts Fund he set up to support Puerto Rican artists after Hurricane Maria. In the Heights had already put his family's Washington Heights neighbourhood on stage. His…0i