ROOMS WITH A VIEW

摘要

NOT SO LONG AGO Swansea High Street was voted Britain's worst shopping thoroughfare -by its own local newspaper. But the bleak vista of closed storefronts, pound shops and betting parlours has slowly become peppered with life. A few years back, the highly acclaimed Volcano Theatre company, having been a roaming entity since 1987, set up shop here. In 2013, Elysium Gallery - a collective providing artist studio and gallery space - became its upstairs neighbours, filling the three floors of this former call centre with a colourful chaos of paintings, textiles and sculpture. In 2016, their shared street front was decorated by cutting-edge (and Swansea-born) graffiti artist Pure Evil, with the face of Elizabeth Taylor - a Hollywood movie icon, for sure, but just as famous for her entanglements with Wales' most famous thespian, Richard Burton. Coffee shops, vintage stores and a zombie video game venue followed.