Strictly's Wynne Evans has a surprising connection to Steven Spielberg (original) (raw)

Wynne Evans might be entertaining millions of people on Saturday nights as he continues to star in the latest series of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, but most viewers are probably unaware of his unusual connection with Steven Spielberg that managed to rescue an old Welsh cinema. Evans is a familiar face to most people across Wales and indeed the UK, with the Carmarthen-born opera singer having found fame in Go Compare adverts before winning Celebrity MasterChef and hosting his own daily show on BBC Radio Wales.

His fame and popularity have increased further in recent weeks with his appearances on Strictly Come Dancing, but it was his mother that made headlines more than 30 years ago when she played a significant role in a story about a dinosaur blockbuster that would ultimately save the cinema she was running. For the latest TV & Showbiz news, sign up to our newsletter.

It’s quite a tall tale, and one that involves one of the biggest films of all time, a fax to Steven Spielberg, a Carmarthen mayor, and Wynne Evans’ mum. To cut a long story short, on July 15, 1993, Jurassic Park had its UK premiere at Carmarthen’s Lyric Theatre. No, seriously.

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"I was in the Queens pub in the middle of town one night,” recalled Richard Goodridge, mayor of Carmarthen in 1993. “Elizabeth Evans (Wynne Evans’ mother), who ran the Lyric Theatre for many years, was there, and she was telling me about this new film Jurassic Park, and how it wasn’t going to be shown down here. She said they had been promised the film but, for whatever reason, it was not going to happen.

"The distribution company, based in London, were not going to send a copy of it down here. I don’t know why - maybe because the cinema didn’t have that many seats or maybe because Carmarthen was not a place that many people had heard of in London. As mayor I thought I would try and do something about this.”

The story made big headlines in the summer of 1993; Mayor Richard Goodridge poses with the all-important film reel and Elizabeth Evans (Image: Jonathan Myers)

Queues outside the Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen ahead of a screening of Jurassic Park (Image: ~SWEP)

Mr Goodridge immediately wrote a letter to Spielberg himself and faxed it to the legendary director at his office in Hollywood. In the coming days, Mr Goodridge woke in the middle of the night to speak to a woman working in Mr Spielberg’s office in California, while Mrs Evans was also doing all she could to make sure that Jurassic Park would be shown at her cinema.

Around a week later, a letter arrived to the mayor’s parlour in Carmarthen direct from the managing director of United International Pictures. The letter stated “in order not to disappoint the people of Carmarthen, I have now given instructions for a print of Jurassic Park to be allocated to the Lyric Cinema.” “But,” explained Mr Goodridge, “not only did they agree to show the film itself but it was to be shown at the same time as the premiere in London - a day earlier than the widespread release.” You can read much more about the night of the premiere here.

The faxt sent all the way from Carmarthen to Hollywood (Image: Jonathan Myers)

“My mum was a great storyteller,” said Mark Llewelyn Evans, Wynne Evans’ brother and fellow opera singer. “She would always tell us the story of how children would be desperate to see this film, and they were begging her to make sure that she got hold of it for the Lyric. So she chatted to the mayor and it went from there.

"He sent a fax to America and my mum followed it up with a phone call to Steven Spielberg’s secretary. They were a great partnership because Richard was always very well connected and my mum had a knack of getting things done - she was very incredibly good at getting people to see her side of the story.

“Mum used to run a hair salon in Waterloo Terrace in Carmarthen, and it was there that she heard one day that the Lyric was going to be knocked down. She ended up paying a pound a year to the council, which meant that they basically had someone running the building for them for nothing.

"In return she was able to use it as a home for the local youth opera group and she’d be there every day putting on films. She gave her life to that place. When Jurassic Park came out, she and Richard fought so hard to get it because they knew it would give the theatre money and momentum. There were queues there night after night, and it allowed her to stay there for years.”

The incredible story of how Elizabeth Evans helped to save the Lyric was immortalised in the film Save the Cinema, released in January 2022, with Golden Globe Award-winning Samantha Morton taking on the lead role of the Carmarthen stalwart who did so much for the town’s theatre over the years. In another celebration of a historic event in Carmarthen’s history, Jurassic Park was once again shown at the Lyric Theatre later in 2022, almost 30 years after the film saved it from extinction.

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