First performance of canon law play ‘Thrice to Rome’

December 8, 2023

The inaugural performance of a new canon law play, Thrice to Rome, by Professor Norman Doe, took place in Wales this October.

Mari James, St Davids Cathedral Library Development Officer, writes:

The evening of Friday 6th October 2023 in the medieval Quire of St Davids Cathedral was a special time and place. During the 800th anniversary year of Gerallt Gymro/ Gerald of Wales’ death, his own words took a fully engaged audience through the adversarial and dramatic dealings in the Papal Court in Rome. Our venue definitely gave Norman Doe’s dramatisation an extra tingling of the spine. The building around us was being built when the events before us were played out. Gerald’s distinctive tomb effigy was round the corner from the staging, next to his cousin the Arglwydd Rhys. It was also appropriate that the cast was made up of leading Canon lawyers from Wales and England, alongside leading members of our Cathedral team. This was the pinnacle of our various celebrations this year of this key figure in the history of the identity of Wales and its Christian heritage. The Cathedral Library was delighted to have been able to assist this all come together. And, with the advantage of hindsight, we could celebrate that although wider European politics defeated Gerald’s claim that Wales was really a metropolitan Archbishopic in its own right, that over 700 years later, in 1920, his campaign was successful and the Church in Wales was established with its own Archbishop. For the 70 or so people who were there, the world premiere of Thrice to Rome is an evening they are unlikely to forget.