On Friday the new exhibition, Forged in Wales: Five Welsh Actors was officially opened at Tenby Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition that looks at the life and careers of five actors closely associated not only with Wales but also with the international film scene - Richard Burton, Stanley Baker, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Sheen and of course Tenby born Kenneth Griffith.

Curator Mark Lewis spoke about how “it was wonderful fun working on this show, and not as Richard Burton once said about some of his less salubrious film choices, just an excuse for somewhere to go in the morning.”  

He went on to thank the Friends of Tenby Museum and Art Gallery for their support for the exhibition, saying “the work you do is invaluable to the work that we do.”

He then introduced Dr Eva Griffith, who had travelled from London to open the exhibition.

“Dr Griffith is a 17th century theatre historian, researcher, writer and actor,” said Mark. “She is also the daughter of Tenby’s own Kenneth Griffith, who features in this exhibition, and as a child acted alongside Richard Burton, which in my opinion makes her the coolest person in this room!”

Dr. Griffith said: “I am honoured to have been asked to open this wonderful exhibition of Welsh men.”  She spoke about the vitality of the “Celtic men in suits” and how fitting that the show should be opened by a woman.  

She recalled how Richard Burton wore his suit better than the English gentlemen and how he took the English language and spoke it better than the Englishmen and that, looking at the actors in the exhibition, if you want an award-winning Englishman in a suit how you should to get a Welshman to do it!

She recalled memories of her father, Kenneth Griffith and of walks on Castle Hill where he would rant against imperialism.  

She wished that she had been born Welsh or Irish for her father but joked “he had a tendency to marry and divorce a series of middle-class English women which made me middle class and English, but I consider Tenby my home.  

“The exhibition brings back some wonderful memories of my father and makes me think so fondly of my past. Daddy would have loved the exhibition and that he was still remembered in his hometown.”  She revealed two wonderful portraits of herself as a child acting for the first time with Richard Burton before declaring the exhibition open. It runs until the end of December.