The Force is strong across Wales this Spring with Dirty Protest’s dream team on tour.

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The theatre company, Dirty Protest heads to Abergavenny on Wednesday 25 April at 7:30pm with a play inspired by Wales’s claim to Star Wars fame.

Lightspeed from Pembroke Dock is a co-production between Wales’s acclaimed new writing company, Dirty Protest, Chapter and the Torch Theatre and takes the 1979 Pembroke Dock building of the full-scale Millennium Falcon as its inspiration.

Lightspeed From Pembroke Dock is the story of young Star Wars fan Sam, who in 1979 finds out that the Millennium Falcon is being built in his hometown as part of The Empire Strikes Back – with his stepfather helping to build it.

Fast forward to 2014 and Sam finds himself in his 40s, divorced, with a teenage daughter and a career that’s not quite where he wanted it to be. Production of The Force Awakens has just started and the Millennium Falcon is being rebuilt in the same docks; young and idealistic daughter Lizzie takes it upon herself to get her dad a job on the set.

“In 1979, I was too young to be aware of the rumours that the Millennium Falcon was being built on my doorstep,” says Pembrokeshire playwright Mark Williams of the inspiration behind the play. “Learning about it later, it felt almost too amazing to be true. The thought of actually getting to see it – what that would mean to someone of Sam’s age, and how that might shape his life – was what first inspired Lightspeed.”

Williams also drew inspiration for the play from the Star Wars characters and themes themselves. “It’s two generations of parents and children and both of them being unconventional family units. It’s a theme that I really like, which is also strong in the Star Wars films themselves, different people coming together with a common cause.

Tickets are priced at £14 (concessions £12) Students £7 and are available from the theatre’s box office 01873 850805 and website boroughtheatreabergavenny.co.uk

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Abergavenny Now founder and History graduate from Bath Spa University. I was born in Abergavenny and have lived in the town for most of my life.

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