This August, we meet Sian Richardson. Sian is a familiar face here in the Torch Theatre. Not only did she attend the Youth Theatre as a child, but more recently, she took centre stage in a post-show talk following our production of Kill Thy Neighbour where she chatted about her Bluetits Chill Swimmers, here in Pembrokeshire. 

In 1979, when I was 15 years old, I joined the Torch Theatre Youth Drama Group led by Tim Arthur. Once a week, four of us from St Davids would get two busses to Milford after school for a few hours of drama fun with other youngsters from Pembrokeshire. To say I loved these sessions would be an understatement.

Tim was one of those leaders who saw the potential in everyone, and I always left there feeling like I could conquer any world stage and was very likely to become the next sensation in Hollywood! We wrote our own plays to perform on the Torch stage and took them out onto the streets of Pembrokeshire. My love of the stage began in school, but it was intensified after I took my first step onto a real live theatre stage.

I loved the back stage technicals, hearing the subdued commands from the back stage manager, standing in the wings feeling my heart beating in my chest waiting for my cue, the lights on my face when I hit the stage, coming off stage knowing I had remembered all my lines, taking my make up off after the show whilst engaging in the post-performance conversations that always focused on the cock ups we got away with and the amazing moments where everything just flowed and the audience loved it.

I learnt many things from being part of a cast and performing on a stage that have been beneficial to me all my life. In the many situations I have been in where I have been really nervous about something, I have always thought about myself being on a stage. I imagine being back-stage taking deep breaths and waiting for my cue, striding onto the stage and socking up the lights. I know from my experience on a stage that if you stand tall and speak clearly, those watching you will be captivated, if you slither on apologetically your audience will feel uncomfortable and in turn you won’t have a very pleasant experience.

I started the Bluetits chill swimmers here in Pembrokeshire in 2014. Quite simply we are a community of people who gather informally around water. It all started with two of us on a beach in Pembrokeshire and has now grown to a community of 170,000 people all around the world. We interact on Facebook groups. Ten years on, I do a fair amount of public speaking about the benefits of being part of an inclusive community in and around cold water. It’s something I love doing and relish every opportunity to stand on a stage or be in a room full of people and talk about my passions for open water swimming and the community we have created with the Bluetits.

To date I have not been a sensation in Hollywood, I’m only 60 years old … so there is still time.

Photo Credit: Ella Richardson