Emeritus Professor Martin Banham

Dear Judie Christie and Richard Gough,

I am very conscious of the outstanding international reputation of CPR. There is no comparable performance research body in the UK and practitioners, performers, students and scholars worldwide look to CPR in Wales for stimulus and experience. I am also aware that there have been approaches from elsewhere in the UK to host CPR, aware of its extraordinary prestige, but also of your dedication to Wales. In Cardiff, and now in Aberystwyth, CPR has created a unique research environment, hugely stimulating to the performing arts in Wales and beyond. Clearly an operation such as this cannot work on the basis of project funding: it requires the confidence to plan ahead on a long-term basis. It will, I know, be greeted with astonishment by those in the international community who greatly value CPR’s innovative work, that rather than being treasured by the Welsh Arts Council, CPR is being effectively threatened with closure. I know I speak for a wide community of theatre and performance scholars in sending you this message and in urging the Welsh Arts Council to continue realistic support of what they should see as an operation that reflects enormous international credit on Wales,

Yours sincerely,



Emeritus Professor Martin Banham
Editor, The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre