John Jones’s life is ripe for dramatisation, full of renegade spirit and derring-do that borders on the fantastical. An outlaw from north Wales with an aptitude for escaping the authorities, he had risen to criminal heights by the time of his death in 1913, variously hailed as the Welsh Houdini, Little Turpin and Coch Bach y Bala (the Little Redhead of Bala).
So it is a shame that this debut by theatre critic turned playwright Chris Ashworth-Bennion feels like a missed opportunity in its enactment of Jones’s myth and its failure to penetrate it. The play begins in a pub where Jones (Simon Holland Roberts) is hiding out after escaping from prison. He is holding drinkers rapt with stories of his “heroic” past and it is clear that he knows how to self-mythologise. But is he speaking the truth? And is he a common criminal or an incendiary force of rebellion?
