The Pantomime Valley

Ian Robertson is 52 years old and works successfully as a chef at the seventeenth century manor house, Llancaiach Fawr in the Taff Bargoed valley. He is a native of the Welsh valleys and this immersion feeds his creativity and obsession with its culture and people. His work although based in reality has a surreal, carnival quality. This selection of lyrical fiction is dark, witty and original. It puts small town valleys life under the microscope and paints vivid portraits of the human condition in 1950/60's Wales. Ian Robertson explores difficult and sometimes taboo themes and comes out as a champion of 'the other'.