In hindsight the injury was both a blessing and a curse. It happened in the heyday of John Manders' rugby career when he was around 23 years old.
A capped Wales youth international, John's time on the pitch had seen him score tries for Cardiff, Newport, and Pontypridd. But damage to a ligament in his knee brought it all to a grinding halt, leaving him housebound with crutches and a wheelchair.
Unable to play rugby for a year, John yearned for the adrenaline rush of representing his country in a red jersey before thousands of fans. And so he needed a replacement for that thrill – but where he found it was worlds away from Welsh rugby.
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He had friends involved in amateur theatre and they used to bring him along to their rehearsals, John, now 61, recalled. It wasn't his first foray into performing arts – "I've always had a love of theatre," he said – but this time his interest was "really invigorated". Join our WhatsApp news community here for the latest breaking news.
Soon he ended up performing in amateur productions and discovered "walking onto a stage in front of 1,000 people" was just as exhilarating as walking onto the pitch. From there his involvement in theatre "snowballed" and he has not stopped since whether it be writing, directing, performing, or producing shows.
He wrote his first musical in 2002 – a family show called Tickledom which debuted in the Swansea Grand Theatre. "That was taken on by a foreign holiday company who performed it across Europe and we've performed it ourselves in The Gatehouse theatre in London and the Donald Gordon Theatre here [in Cardiff]," he said. Since then he's written several other shows, performed roles from Jigger Craigin in Carousel to Jud Fry in Oklahoma, and taken the stage in major venues in Wales, England, and Scotland such as Cardiff's New Theatre.
But John has never let go of his passion for rugby, impressively balancing his involvement in the sport with both his theatrical pursuits and his 30-year career as a police officer. He's now one of the directors of the Welsh Rugby Union – having been elected as the community game board chair in November last year – and on a local level he has been chair of Old Illtydians RFC in Cardiff for around two decades.
"I'm very lucky I have two hobbies that I love doing," he said. "When I wasn't in work [as a police officer] it was theatre. I'd be lucky enough that if I was on a nightshift I'd have all day to do theatre and rugby... I just made it work."
He continued: "I'm able to time manage well... I don't feel like any of it's work. Rugby is a hobby and a passion, theatre is a hobby and a passion – if you love your hobbies you're going to do them. It tires me out sometimes, don't get me wrong – my family do say: 'Slow down, Dad'...but I keep smiling and keep doing." For the latest Cardiff news sign up to our newsletter here.
His incongruous interests have raised some eyebrows – and elicited some gentle ribbing – from his colleagues both in rugby and when he was in the force. "Look, I'm a six foot four, 20st bloke who used to play rugby...they're as shocked as most people are," he laughed. "I get loads of questions...but they love it. Most people think it's brilliant and they support it. I'm very lucky that my Welsh rugby family come and see the shows."
When John retired from the police in April 2018 his life in theatre "took another level". He and his friend Richard Perry – a former commercial director of the Wales Millennium Centre, whom John had known through theatrical for two decades – came up with the idea to start their own production company.
"When I retired he finished around that time and we were chatting over coffee saying: 'Why don't we just carry on?' and I went: 'Okay.' And we did."
The company, called Live Under the Stars, took off around two years ago. It has since produced a host of shows – from the Cardiff Castle Jubilee Celebration Concert in 2022 to the Magic of Motown and a play teaching schoolchildren about knife crime, drugs, and violence. One of its biggest projects is the month-long Cardiff Christmas Festival, which is returning this December for a second year, having attracted 15,000 spectators last year. The five shows in the festival – which include family spectacle Santa's Wish, cabaret production Castellana, and Britain’s Got Talent musical theatre group Welsh of the West End – will be performed in the 550-seat Fortuna Spiegeltent in Sophia Gardens.
The spiegeltent – an ornate baroque-style mirrored tent, which is being shipped to Cardiff and takes two days to build – is one of only a handful left in the world, said John. "We've managed to secure one for a number of years from Holland to bring it here."
But aside from being breathtaking the unique venue holds a personal significance for John – one that he only discovered recently and took him completely by surprise. Earlier this year the WRU director learnt he was descended from one of the greatest English showmen of the 1800s, William Manders, who is his great-great grandfather.
Manders, who was a former employee and accomplished spieler at Hilton Menagerie – one of country's biggest menageries at the time – bought his employer's business and transformed it into Manders' Grand National Star Menagerie in 1850. He toured his live animal exhibition for two decades in the UK and USA until he died in 1871 and his menagerie was sold in an auction. Over the following decades the menagerie and Manders' family name continued in other iterations including in fairgrounds in Britain. Having had "not even the slightest clue" of his ancestor John said the discovery of the coincidence was both "incredibly odd and amazing" with the spiegeltent of the Cardiff Christmas Festival bearing a resemblance to the travelling tent his great-great-grandfather used.
"In 1850 he started running the Manders Menagerie – which is what I'm doing pretty much in the spiegeltent – with animals. He used to write the music for his shows and he used to write the lyrics for his shows – that's what I do," he said.
John is the only member of his family – except his daughters – who has taken an interest in performing arts. "People ask me: 'Why do you like theatre?' and I say: 'I don't know. Maybe it's in my genetics. I really don't know,'" he laughed.
"It was quite the connection for me I have to be honest. When I started reading and researching it was a weird feeling. I felt I'd been reincarnated a bit – it just felt odd. Randomly your great-grandfather was like the greatest showman and he toured the UK...and I'm doing something similar in Wales. It just blew my mind a bit – and it's blown everyone's minds."
The Cardiff Christmas Festival runs from December 1 until December 24. To find out more and book tickets click here.
