大象传媒

A portrait of the Transporter Bridge in Newport, following those who work on it, travel on it and live in its shadow, presented by Peter van Renswoude-Davies.

Imagine a time-lapse film of Newport over the last century. Transport zips past, trams and carts giving way to a flood of buses and cars; huge ships snake in and out of the port in the blink of an eye; the massive steelworks at Llanwern goes up and then comes down again; and new apartments pop up along the riverside to replace the warehouses and wharfs.

The only unchanging thing in view is the tall frame of the much loved Transporter Bridge.

It's an amazing structure -- arching across the muddy River Usk like some long-ago image of what the future might be like.

It's not like an ordinary bridge. In order to allow tall cargo ships access to the then-busy port, passengers are ferried across the river on a moving 'gondola'. The more bold among them can climb the steps to walk across the top.

It was opened in 1906, built specifically to convey workers to the Orb steelworks from their homes on the other side of the river, at a time when the only other bridge was nearly two miles upriver.

Several other bridges have been built in Newport in the intervening years and in any truly functional sense -- ie, in the sense of it being used to take people from A to B -- the Transporter Bridge is now practically obsolete. It still works, but it is visited as a fascinating attraction, a brilliant piece of history, a heritage asset. Some might find a metaphor for the predicament of post-industrial places like Newport in there somewhere.

The Transporter Bridge might be a perfect frame through which to view the changing place and its people.

Featuring Justin Cliffe and Olivette Otele.

Justin is Artistic Director of Tin Shed Theatre: https://www.tinshedtheatrecompany.com/

Thanks to Alanna, Buthayna, Ellie, Hasan, Kamila, Rayhan, Thamed and all the brilliant pupils and staff of Pillgwenlly Primary School.

Thanks to David Hando, Chair of the Friends of Newport Transporter Bridge.

And thanks to all the visitors who agreed to be recorded and to all those who worked on the Bridge during 2019: Paul Griffiths, Martin Newman, Peter van Renswoude-Davies, Tim Whittingham and Rob Willmot.

Produced by Martin Williams

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