Wales on the Small Screen
A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES (2018-)
Produced by Cardiff-based production company Bad Wolf and filmed at the 250,000 sq ft Wolf Studios Wales in Cardiff Bay, Sky One’s supernatural TV series is an adaptation of Deborah Harkness’ historical fantasy trilogy. A surefire fan hit, it features Diana Bishop (portrayed by Australian actress Teresa Palmer), a historian descended from witches, who’s joined by vampire Matthew Clairmont (Downton Abbey‘s Matthew Goode) on the trail of an ancient manuscript. Location filming took place at the atmospheric Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire, with Palmer describing the Norman fortress site as “crazy beautiful”. Swansea-born Game of Thrones star Owen Teale enjoys himself in the role of powerful witch Peter Knox.
A MIND TO KILL (1994-2002)
Phillip Madoc is protagonist DCI Noel Bain in this gritty Welsh television police detective series that developed from a feature-length pilot episode first broadcast in 1991. Four series were broadcast between 1994 and 2002 and first aired as Yr Heliwr on S4C, before being broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK. The series was filmed in both English and in Welsh, with each scene being shot first in one language and then in the other. The series has since been dubbed into more than a dozen languages and shown all over the world. It is set in south Wales and features a variety of post-industrial, rural, urban and seaside landscapes. The pilot episode was filmed in the Aberystwyth area.
BAKER BOYS (2011)
The story of a small valleys bakery’s impending closure and how it impacts on the lives of its staff, this BBC Wales three-parter provided drama lovers with plenty to chew on. The series was written by Helen Raynor and Gary Owen, while Torchwood creator Russell T Davies also had a role as creative consultant. Brilliantly written and acted, Baker Boys follows the workers of Valley Bara bakery which is the economic centre of Trefynydd, a small fictional village in south Wales. Generations of people had earned a living and formed a life at the bakery, but this is thrown into jeopardy when recession bites and the bakery workers find themselves unemployed overnight. The show was filmed in Caerphilly and the nearby villages of Trethomas and Bedwas.
BANG (2017-)
Set and filmed in the steel town of Port Talbot, S4C’s acclaimed crime drama follows the story of policewoman Gina, played by Catrin Stewart, and her brother Sam, played by Jacob Ifan, who has his life transformed when he comes into possession of a gun. The bilingual TV drama is aimed at attracting international audiences in the same vein as Scandinavian shows like The Killing and The Bridge.
BARRY WELSH IS COMING (1996-2004/2007)
Tucked away on late night HTV Wales, viewers who loved this sketch show will always have a giggle when they hear ‘Fishguard’ mentioned, bringing to mind the often inept news reports of hapless local anchorman Hugh Pugh. Elsewhere, the name of the town’s mayor – Kenny T**t – and Animal Hospital spoof called Animal Rescue Squad – or ARS for short – summed up the level of the humour on offer. Almost all the main characters were played by Swansea-born comedian John Sparkes, who also played the inept presenter Barry Welsh. The show, renamed Barry Welsh Is Going, returned in 2007 in the form of three themed specials, presented by Sparkes in the guise of Fishguard news reporter Hugh Pugh.
BEING HUMAN (2008-2013)
Being Human is a British supernatural comedy-drama television series, created and written by Toby Whithouse for broadcast on BBC Three. The show blends elements of flatshare comedy and horror drama. The pilot episode starred Andrea Riseborough as Annie Sawyer (a ghost), Russell Tovey as George Sands (a werewolf), and Guy Flanagan as John Mitchell (a vampire) – all of whom are sharing accommodation and attempting as well as they can to live a ‘normal’ life and blend in with the ordinary humans around them. Two of the main cast were replaced in the series by Aidan Turner (Mitchell) and Lenora Crichlow (Annie), but, despite major cast changes during its five-series run, it never lost its initial bite. The first two series were set in Bristol, but, in the third series, the four protagonists moved to a former B&B called Honolulu Heights on Coast View Road in Barry Island. In reality, this is an ordinary house on the corner of Cannon Street. The Maerdy Hotel in Pencoed stands in for the Barry Grand Hotel, where Hal and Tom get jobs in the fifth series.
BELONGING (1999-2009)
This BBC Wales soap set in the Welsh valleys town of Bryncoed and revolving around the lives of the Lewis family, ended in 2009 after a 10-year run. Familiar faces to Welsh audiences such as Eve Myles, Di Botcher, Steve Meo and Charles Dale all featured, while the scripts refused to pull any punches or shy away from the reality of working-class life in south Wales.
BORN TO KILL (2017)
A four-part psychological TV thriller from the producers of Line of Duty, it’s the story of a young boy with murderous desires who discovers that, far from being dead as he first thought, his dad is actually a convicted murderer approaching his release date from prison. Starring Romola Garai, Richard Coyle and Daniel Mays, it was shot in and around Cardiff and shown on Channel 4.
BRITANNIA (2018-)
Jez Butterworth’s nine-part series for Sky Atlantic and Amazon Prime follows the Roman conquest of Britain, or Britannia, a ‘mysterious land ruled by warrior women and powerful druids who can channel the powerful forces of the underworld’. Wales’s ancient landscape offered the obvious setting for this epic depiction of Celtic Britain, with Cwm Porth in Ystradfellte and Llyn y Fan Fach in Llanddeusant providing the backdrop for meadow and waterfall settings and coastal scenes shot at the iconic Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsular. Nash Point in Marcross and Henrhyd Falls in Coelbren, Powys, were also used as locations throughout the series.
BYW CELWYDD (2016-)
Meaning ‘Living a Lie’ – Byw Celwydd is a scandal-ridden Welsh language drama portraying the conflict between fictional journalists, advisors and politicians in the corridors of Welsh power. This fictional political drama on S4C has taken advantage of an offer to film in public areas of the Welsh assembly, the Senedd, in Cardiff Bay, which is the setting for a series that imagines what life would be like in Wales under a ruling rainbow coalition of parties, The Democrats, The Nationalists and New Conservatives, with the Socialists in opposition, creating a bitter rivalry where tensions are never far from boiling point.
CAERDYDD (2006-2009)
First commissioned as part of a drive by S4C to reach a younger audience, the series was described as ‘a stylish, new drama about modern, urban Welsh-speakers living in a bilingual city following a group of modern urban twenty- and thirty-somethings with their complex friendships and relationships against a backdrop of relentless socialising’. The show, set in Cardiff, found unexpected late-breaking notoriety when it was revealed a sex scene in its third series had been filmed in the toilets of the Welsh Assembly building, the Senedd. Officials, who’d claimed they’d not been made aware of the nature of the scene, were reportedly not best pleased.
CASUALTY (1986-)
BBC drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital’s emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives. In 2011, Casualty celebrated its 25th anniversary and moved production from Bristol to the Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff. The 1,000th episode of Casualty aired on June 25, 2016. A feature-length 30th anniversary episode aired two months later, episode 1 of series 31. BBC One’s evergreen hospital drama, with more than three decades under its belt, can lay claim to the title of ‘longest running medical drama in the world’. Most exterior shots of the city of Holby are shot within the city of Cardiff and wider area of south Wales. Railway scenes are shot on location at various preserved railways, which from the start of shooting have centred around the West Somerset Railway, the Avon Valley Railway and, more recently, the Barry Tourist Railway.
C’MON MIDFIELD (1988-1994)
Avid viewers of Welsh television during the late ’80s and early ’90s will recognise the hapless Wali – him of the wonky glasses, braces and too-tight beret. Played by Mei Jones, he was dim-witted linesman at Bryn Coch United. a fictional village football team whose comic travails made up all six series and 32 episodes. It won a BAFTA Cymru in 1992.
CON PASSIONATE (2005-2008)
Winner of the 2007 Rose d’Or at Montreux for best soap/light drama, Con Passionate followed the trials and tribulations of a Welsh male voice choir, whose fractious nature comes to the fore with the arrival of their new musical director. Played by real-life soprano Shan Cothi, the sultry Davina brings the men’s failings and weaknesses to the surface, making them realise they don’t know their arias from their elbows.
COWBOIS AC INJANS (2006-2007)
A comedy about used car salesmen, its sibling co-writers Jon and Catherine Tregenna certainly got a lot of mileage from a simple but effective premise. Shot in a former Rover dealership near Cowbridge, the show won two BAFTA Cymru Awards during its relatively short run.
CRAITH (2018)
This Snowdonia-set murder mystery sees dark secrets unfold amidst the stunning scenery of north-west Wales. The bilingual crime thriller stars Brecon’s Sian Reese-Williams. An English language version – known as Hidden – came later on BBC Wales.
CRASH (2009-2010)
From EastEnders alumni Tony Jordan came this drama about the lives and loves of four newly-qualified doctors. Screened on BBC One Wales and filmed in Cardiff, it received a mixed diagnosis from critics, some calling it bloodless while others commended it for being a cut above the usual quality of regional programming.
DA VINCI’S DEMONS (2013-2015)
Da Vinci’s Demons was filmed in the Swansea area. Big and brash, this £20m Transatlantic production re-imagined the titular Italian artist as a swashbuckling young adventurer. Shot in the old Ford car factory at Neath Port Talbot, it ran for three series and was screened in more than 125 countries in 45 languages.
DECLINE AND FALL (2017)
Shot all over south Wales – from a castle in Merthyr to a pub in Cowbridge – this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’a high society satire saw comedian Jack Whitehall and Desperate Housewives‘ Eva Longoria put on their 1920s’ glad-rags alongside TV Poirot David Suchet and This Is England‘s Stephen Graham. Almost as entertaining were Longoria’s Instagram posts of her stay in Wales, during which time she became smitten with both the scenery and the language.
DOCTOR WHO (1963-)
From Snowdonia in north Wales to Cardiff in the south, the sci-fi phenomenon that is Doctor Who has been using Wales as the back-drop to many of its episodes since 1967 when Nant Ffrancon Pass near Llyn Ogwen lake and the town of Bethesda in northern Snowdonia were passed off as the barren Himalayan foothills of Tibet in The Abominable Snowman.
More recently, the episode Planet of the Oods was filmed at Trefil Quarry, Tredegar, the location being transformed into a snow-covered planet and an Ood factory.
In modern times, the Doctor Who production team has filmed mainly in Cardiff and the surrounding area. To meet interest from fans, the BBC has even created an interactive map showing where filming has taken place. The Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures have also been filmed in and around Wales. Doctor Who has its home base at Roath Lock in Cardiff Bay, a 16,000 square metre purpose-built BBC site where Casualty and Pobol y Cwm are also created.
A Saturday tea-time staple since its rebirth under Swansea’s Russell T Davies in the mid-Noughties, this long-running sci-fi favourite helped put Wales firmly on the TV tourist map.
Places in the Welsh capital where the Doctor and his Tardis have materialised over the years include:
Westgate Street
Aside from the subterranean corridors of the Millennium Stadium, which have also made an apperance or two, nearby Westgate Street played a key role in the series nine episode Face the Raven, which not only saw the end of Jenna Coleman’s tenure as the Doctor’s companion, but also served to introduce the Diagon Alley of the Whoniverse… the Doctor and Clara coming across a hidden entrance to an alleyway which leads to a secret, alien street.
St Mary Street
Back in 2005, Doctor Who literally exploded back onto our screens, when the London department store that Rose worked at went up in flames… except that the scene in question was actually shot on St Mary Street, using House of Fraser as a stand-in. Shops on St Mary Street and in Queens Arcade are also used later in the episode, as well as during the series two opener (and David Tennant’s debut) The Christmas Invasion.
The National Museum of Wales
A Doctor Who staple, the National Museum of Wales, located in the heart of Cardiff city centre, has been used in several episodes, most notably, Dalek, Voyage of the Damned, The Big Bang and The Day of the Doctor – the 50th anniversary special that saw Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt team up. Founded in 1905, the beautiful building boasts rooms to please art and natural history lovers alike.
Dyffryn Gardens
Located just outside Cardiff, Dyffryn Gardens has doubled for 18th Century France in The Girl in the Fireplace, 19th Century Scottish moors in Tooth and Claw and a cyberspace reality in Forest of the Dead. The Dyffryn Estate dates back to 640AD and the gardens have been listed as one of the top 100 gardens in the UK by the British Tourist Authority.
Cardiff Castle
Located right in the heart of the city centre, Cardiff Castle has been used for many scenes in both Doctor Who and spin-off Torchwood, most notably during the series six two-parter, The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People and in the Christmas episode The Snowmen. In the series one episode Boom Town the castle was scheduled to be demolished for the Blaidd Drwg (Bad Wolf) project, which – thanks to the Ninth Doctor – fortunately didn’t go as planned.
Cathedral Green, Llandaff
During the Eleventh Doctor’s adventures with Amy Pond and Rory Williams, viewers were introduced to the fictional town of Leadworth… which was, in fact, the small suberb of Llandaff. The Cathedral Green, in particular, was used memorably in Matt Smith’s debut as the Eleventh Doctor in The Eleventh Hour.
Caerphilly Castle
Located just outside Cardiff, Caerphilly Castle has been used in numerous episodes, serving as the backdrop to Nightmare in Silver and Robot of Sherwood and featured in the series nine opener, The Magicians Apprentice. A short stroll across the road to Morgan Jones Park brings you to the location that David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor bade farewell to his companions in the series four finale Journeys End.
St Fagans National History Museum
In 2008, when the Tenth Doctor had to re-write his biology to pass as the human John Smith, many of the scenes for the two-parter Human Nature and The Family of Blood were shot at St Fagans, an open-air museum chronicling the historical lifestyle of the Welsh people, making it the perfect setting for 1913. It has also been seen in the series nine episode The Woman Who Lived, featuring Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams.
Roald Dahl Plass
Named after the Cardiff-born author, Roald Dahl Plass plays home to the secret location of The Hub, Torchwood’s headquarters. Located on the Cardiff Space-Time Rift, it emerges that the TARDIS can also use this spot to re-fuel on rift energy. There remains a shrine to Ianto Jones on the Cardiff Bay waterfront, for fans wanting to pay their respects to Torchwood‘s much missed ‘tea boy’.
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff Bay was used as the high-tech urban setting for the Doctor Who episode Boom Town, while the episode The Runaway Bride made use of office buildings in the Bay.
Of course, the show’s spin-off, Torchwood, had its home here, the makers of the show deliberately avoiding stereotypical portrayals of Wales in order to show Cardiff as the modern urban centre it is today. There is a lift from The Hub into the plaza with a perception filter making anyone who stands on the spot “not noticed”. In the third series of Torchwood, entitled Children Of Earth, the Torchwood Hub was destroyed in an explosion.
Southerndown Beach
It’s only a short trip along the south Wales coast from Cardiff to Dunraven Bay (Southerndown Beach), the place that doubled as Bad Wolf Bay, the scene of the heartwrenching farewell between David Tennant’s Doctor and his faithful companion Rose Tyler.
Picture credit: BBC
GAME OF THRONES
American TV giant HBO, the makers of hit TV show Game of Thrones, spent four days filming at Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in 2018. Fans of the blockbuster series will be aware that some of the most love-to-hate characters in Game of Thrones were played by Welsh actors.
Castle Black’s Master of Arms Alliser Thorne, who led the rest of the turncoat Night Watchmen in stabbing Jon Snow, is played by Swansea boy Owen Teale; the terrifyingly sadistic and evil Ramsey Bolton is chillingly portrayed by Carmarthen-born Iwan Rheon; Richard Brake, who hails from Ystrad Mynach, plays the terrifying Night’s King, leader of the White Walkers, who aim to bring permanent winter to Westeros; not forgetting Flintshire-born Jonathan Pryce as the religious zealot, the High Sparrow.
GAVIN AND STACEY (2007-2019)
This much-loved BBC comedy drama put the Vale of Glamorgan seaside town of Barry so firmly on the map that local guides decided to offer amusing coach tours of many of the locations featured in the series. Essential stops would include Trinity Street, where Stacey and her family live, Marco’s Café, where Stacey gets a job, and St Peter’s Church in Peterston-Super-Ely, where Nessa and Dave nearly get married. There are many locations to visit, including The Colcot Arms (home of Smithy’s quiz night), Island Leisure Amusement Arcade (where Nessa works) and Whitmore Bay (Barry Island beach).
The wealth of culture-clash comedy mined from this ‘Welsh girl meets Essex boy’ sitcom made it an international hit and created stars of its cast, not least co-writers Ruth Jones and James Corden, while the character of Uncle Bryn helped propel Rob Brydon all the way to Hollywood. Mathew Horne and Joanna Page play the titular characters Gavin and Stacey, while writers Corden and Jones star as Smithy and Nessa.
Three series totalling 20 episodes were broadcast from May 2007 to January 2010 and Gavin & Stacey was the most nominated show in the 2007 British Comedy Awards. It won several awards, including the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs) Audience Award and the British Comedy Awards Best TV Comedy Award, both in 2008. In the National Television Awards in January 2010, Gavin and Stacey won the award for Best Comedy. Corden and Jones wrote a Christmas Day 2019 special which attracted 18.49 million viewers.
The series follows the romance between Gavin, from Billericay, Essex, and Stacey, from Barry, south Wales. Gavin lives with his parents, Pam and Mick, and spends most of his time with his best friend, Smithy. Stacey lives with her widowed mother, Gwen, and is frequently visited by her uncle, Bryn, who lives across the road, and by her best friend Nessa. The show follows the key moments in their relationship: their first meeting, meeting each other’s families, getting engaged, marrying, looking for a flat, briefly splitting up, looking for new jobs and trying for children.
Although the programme is set in Billericay, Essex, and Barry, the three series were shot largely in Cardiff (which acted as the city itself, but also as parts of Billericay), and also in Barry and the surrounding area, including Dinas Powys, Sully and Penarth. Gavin’s house was set in Billericay, but was actually filmed on location in Laburnum Way, Dinas Powys.
The show’s popularity has been credited with boosting the tourist trade to Barry and its popular seafront of Barry Island, through visitors wishing to visit the various filming locations.
In the fifth episode of the second series, for Gwen’s birthday barn dance, Bryn and Nessa perform a duet of Islands in the Stream. This was adapted into Barry Islands In The Stream, a musical mini-sketch aired for Comic Relief. In a storyline that sees Bryn and Nessa invited to compete in the World Karaoke Championships in Las Vegas, Nessa bumps into her old friend Tom Jones, who joins them on stage, and the sketch also features Bee Gee Robin Gibb. Also released as a charity single, it debuted in the number one spot on the UK Singles Chart in March 2009.
GOGS (1993-19998)
A Welsh claymation-style animated television series which took the form of a sitcom, originally aired on S4C in 1993, and aired in the rest of the UK on the BBC in 1996. Gogs has since been aired internationally, and still enjoys re-runs on occasion.
Gogs revolves around a family clan of dumb, primitive and socially inept cavemen in a fantasy prehistoric Stone Age setting, and contained much dark comedy, various toilet humour-based gags and gross-out situations; for example, the cavemen losing control of their bodily functions. It also featured their often comedic daily struggle for survival, and attempts to advance their technology and society, such as creating fire, and often failing miserably, comically and absurdly in the act.
In the Welsh language, the term ‘Gogs’ is slang for ‘Gogledd’ which translates as ‘North’ and ‘gogs’ as ‘Northerners’. The Welsh creators of the show (Deiniol Morris, Sion Jones and Michael Mort) decided that the single syllable word ‘Gog’ had just the right sound and a simple, direct quality which seemed to lend itself well to the primitive nature of the cave family.
The show is more oriented towards an adult audience than other claymation television series such as The Trap Door or Wallace and Gromit, which are more child-friendly. Although often called a children’s television program, the “grungy” Gogs with its adult humour-based gags tended to be shown after the watershed, and so was often referred to as “claymation for the post-pub generation”. There was an intention by Jones, Morris and Mort to rebel against the ‘cleaning up’ of the comedic cartoon ‘violence’ with which they had grown up. Later VHS and DVD releases carried a parental guidance rating.
The original series contained only five episodes each of around five to six minutes long. After winning numerous awards, a second series was commissioned with episodes running at a similar length, bringing the total number of episodes of the two series to 13 in number. In 1998, the last installment of Gogs, a 30-minute-long special, Gogwana, was aired, which was also critically well received and won numerous awards.
HARD SUN (2017-)
An apocalyptic thriller from the pen of Luther creator Neil Cross, Hard Sun asked the question: ‘What would you do if you stumbled across incontrovertible, top-secret proof that the world was set to end in five years?’ Key scenes in the foreboding show were shot at Parys Mountain quarry near Amlwch but, unfortunately, all ended up on the cutting room floor, although they did make it onto the director’s cut version of the DVD release.
HIDDEN/CRAITH (2018-)
Gritty detective drama set in north Wales and filmed in Bangor and Snowdonia, perfect for those who like twists and turns in their storytelling. Initially broadcast in Welsh on S4C under its Welsh name Craith, the bilingual version of the series, under the English name Hidden, was broadcast on BBC One Wales and BBC Four.
HIGH HOPES (1999-2015)
Cult Welsh sitcom written by Boyd Clack and Kirsten Jones. Fagin, a Welsh entrepreneur with a shady past, takes in two young tearaways as apprentices. The series follows their daily lives in the Welsh valleys. The traditional sitcom set-up of this BBC Wales favourite belied the fact it was actually about an agorophobic ex-convict who enlists the two lads who tried to burgle him into helping carry out his dodgy business deals. Set in the fictional Cwm-Pen-Ôl, Robert Blythe was brilliantly grubby as the monstrous Fagin, while the late great Margaret John matched him line for crude line.
HINTERLAND (2013-2016)
Scandi-noir recast amidst the brooding Ceredigion countryside and set in Aberystwyth, this moody bilingual cop thriller has proved a huge hit across the globe, thanks largely to its availability on streaming giants such as Netflix. Richard Harrington’s harried thousand-yard stare and mid-Wales’s ominous landscapes make this slow-burning police procedural a far cry from the usual world of glossy, slam-bang cop series. When it was aired on the BBC in 2013, Hinterland was the first BBC drama with dialogue in both Welsh and English.
HIS DARK MATERIALS
This extraordinary BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels is set in the likes of Oxford, Lapland and London, as well as fictional destinations such as Bolvangar, Trollesund and Cittàgazze, but has actually been filmed predominantly in Wales.
The plot follows the story of orphan Lyra (Dafne Keen) as she embarks on a quest to learn about a mysterious particle called Dust, which sees her discover a parallel world. However, the sinister Magisterium is determined to keep Dust a secret, not to mention the ruthless Mrs Coulter (Ruth Wilson) is determined to find Lyra.
Because of the fantastical elements in His Dark Materials, the majority of filming for seasons one and two took place in Bad Wolf Studios in Cardiff, with impressive sets being built to bring Pullman’s fictional locations to life.
But the cast also headed further afield in Wales. For example, Brecon Beacons National Park was ideal for Lyra’s journey to the North, surrounded by rolling green hills and craggy cliffs. It also provided a backdrop for scenes starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Lee Scoresby in the show.
To create the fictional Trollesund, where Lyra first meets Lee as well as Iorek, a giant polar bear, an entire set was built in the Llangynidr Quarry near Crickhowell. Meanwhile, the portal which leads to Will’s world in the series was filmed at Cardiff’s Plasturton Gardens, despite being located in Oxford in the show.
I’M A CELEBRITY… GET ME OUT OF HERE! (2020)
I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! returned for its 20th series in November 2020 on ITV. Due to the covid-19 travel restrictions, the series was not filmed in Australia for the first time in the show’s history, but was instead filmed at Gwrych Castle in Abergele, north Wales. On December 4, 2020, the series was won by the author, presenter and blogger Giovanna Fletcher, with Jordan North finishing as the runner-up.
As part of the agreement with Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust, ITV announced it would help support the ongoing restoration project of the site, donating money to the trust for the use of the site for four months, as well as paying for additional emergency restoration work.
Initial reactions to the new filming locations were mixed, with fans expression confusion and amusement as to how various aspects of the show would be translated into a Welsh setting. Vale of Clwyd MP James Davies and Prime Minister Boris Johnson both welcomed the relocation during a session of Prime Minister’s Questions.
Once the series began, viewers reacted positively to the new location. Journalist Katie Archer from Radio Times suggested that the relocation to Gwrych Castle become a permanent feature as a way of refreshing the format.
Picture credit: BBC
KEEPING FAITH (2017-)
Eve Myles stars in this drama about a young woman struggling to pick up the pieces after her husband mysteriously vanishes. Keeping Faith was shot in various Welsh locations, from Carmarthenshire to Newport. Eve, who plays the main character Faith Howells, had to learn Welsh specifically for this dual-language eight-part series.
MERLIN (2008-2012)
A fantasy drama set in Wales about the legend of King Arthur and Merlin. This swashbuckling adventure gained momentum as time went on and even drew one or two comparisons with Doctor Who. While the BBC’s sword and sorcery extravaganza never quite lived up to that, there was still a lot of fun to be had from its world of myths and magic – not least in hearing the late, much-missed John Hurt providing the voice of Kilgarah, the Great Dragon. While Chateau de Pierrefonds in France was chosen to represent Camelot, other interior and exterior sequences were filmed in beautiful locations all over Wales including Cosmeston Medieval Village, the Brecon Beacons National Park, Trefil Quarry, Tredegar, Castell Coch and Caerphilly, Chepstow and Raglan castles.
MINE ALL MINE (2004)
Before he became known as the man who rebirthed Doctor Who in 2005, Russell T Davies penned this piece of whimsy starring Griff Rhys as an eccentric cabbie who, through some ancestral McGuffin, discovers he owns the entire city of Swansea.
Ruth Madoc, Jason Hughes, Sharon Morgan and Joanna Page rounded out a great cast, although Rhys Jones himself commented that his Welsh accent left a lot to be desired – often “visiting Mumbai and Northern Ireland before coming to rest in Windsor Davies”.
MORTIMER’S LAW (1998)
Axed after only one series, this little remembered crime drama saw a London-based barrister relocate to rural Wales after a court case goes horribly wrong. There she becomes a coroner and investigates a series of grisly cases.
NUTS AND BOLTS (1999-2002)
Despite winning The Royal Television Society Award for Best Regional Drama in 1999, Nuts & Bolts suffered from irregular scheduling, eventually leading to its cancellation. It was filmed in Merthyr Tydfil and starred Eve Myles, Jonny Owen, Roger Evans, Matt Ryan and Jan Anderson, amongst others.
PAM FI DUW? (1997-2002)
Any Welsh-speaking teenagers in Wales during the late 1990s will remember S4C soap Pam Fi Duw? Set in a valleys community, it followed the ups and downs of teen life, in a similar style to Grange Hill. Tranlsated as ‘Why Me God?’ – it starred the late, great Brian Hibbard as Deryck, father to the main character Rhys Davies (Hefin Rees) and was filmed mostly around the Rhondda Valley and at Ysgol Gyfun Cymer, near Porth.
POBL Y CWM (1974-)
It’s the longest-running soap produced by the BBC and is still going strong to this day. Set in the fictional Cwmderi, located in Gwendraeth Valley, which is between Carmarthen and Llanelli in south-west Wales, the five-night-a week soap hasn’t shied away from big social issues, such as bulimia, paedophilia, arson and heroin addiction. It won a Mind mental health award in 2009 and in the same year was nominated for a Stonewall Award for its positive portrayal of gay characters. On September 25, 2019, the soap hit a significant broadcasting landmark when it aired its 8,000th episode. Whilst much of the show’s early activity took place at a nursing home, storylines have more recenly centred on the village pub, Y Deri, and its adjacent small businesses and houses. Other frequent settings for storylines include the comprehensive school, Ysgol y Mynach, and a local farm, Penrhewl. There are two other fictional villages close to Cwmderi, named Llanarthur and Cwrtmynach. Originally filmed at Broadcasting House, Cardiff, since 2011 the programme has been filmed at the BBC’s drama studios at Roath Lock in Cardiff Bay, other than a few on-location shoots around Cardiff. The exterior outdoor high street of Cwmderi was recreated from scratch, while many interiors are shot inside the Roath Lock Studios.
RED DWARF (1988-)
Better Than Life was the first episode of the spaceship sitcom to feature scenes shot on location. The beach scenes were infamously filmed on Rhyl Beach during cold, cloudy weather. One scene had to be re-written due to the fact that stars Craig Charles (Lister) and Danny John-Jules (Cat) kept shivering while they were meant to be sunbathing on the beach. Director Ed Bye convinced the crew that sunshine could be added in post-production. But this was not possible due to the show’s small budget. Sunshine effects were eventually added in the remastered version. It’s said that Norman Lovett, who plays the ship’s computer Holly, particularly enjoyed the fact that he was able to feed his lines from inside a production truck while the rest of the cast had to suffer with the cold weather, tide and sand.
In Series II, Red Dwarf was able to follow in the proud tradition established by Doctor Who and various other UK sci-fi productions, by using a quarry in north Wales as a suitable base for the habitable moon that played host to Thanks for the Memory’s ‘Deathday’ party.
The character of the first hologram seen on screen in opening episode The End, George McIntyre, was intended to be Australian to fit into the idea that the ship was international, but actor Robert McCulley had problems with the accent and decided to make the character Welsh instead!
One puzzling (and outrageous) reference to Wales was made in Red Dwarf when Lister made a joke which included the line: “they’ve got less choice than a Welsh fish and chip shop”.
REQUIEM (2018)
Shot around Cardiff, Newport, Usk and Dolgellau, this psychological, supernatural thriller saw a troubled cellist return home to Wales after her mother’s shocking suicide. There, in the fictional Welsh village of Penllynith, she discovers the truth about long-buried secrets involving a missing toddler and a local cult intent on resurrecting some ancient dark deity. Think The Wickerman, but with added druids and low cloud coverage. Much of filming of this BBC and Netflix collaboration took place in the real-life Welsh locations of Newport, Pembrokeshire and Dolgellau in Snowdonia. Requiem creator and writer Kris Mrksa felt Wales offered the perfect dramatic setting, saying: “When I visited Wales, I fell in love with the place. It has a mystical feel, and the history there is very palpable. There is a druidic vibe there, too. [Characters] Matilda and Hal are quickly drawn into that world and enmeshed in it. The Welsh town becomes a character in its own right.”
ROWND A ROWND (1995-)
Famous at the time of its creation to have Grange Hill and Brookside creator Phil Redmond on board as consultant, Rownd a Rownd was the first youth soap to be made in a Celtic language. Set in the fictional harbour town of Glanrafon in Anglesey, in 2016 it celebrated its 21st birthday, with S4C broadcasting an anniversary special hosted by Tudur Owen. The series is filmed in Menai Bridge, Anglesey and Caernarfon, and Llangefni, north Wales, and is produced by Rondo Media. When it began, the production company converted a disused garage in Dale Street (Welsh name: Lôn Cilbedlam) in Menai Bridge into a fake row of shops, which include a café, a hairdresser, a newsagent, a taxi firm, a pizza place and a bar. There is a sign outside this set informing the public that the shops are not real. School scenes are filmed in Ysgol Gyfun Llangefni and Ysgol David Hughes. Hospital scenes are often filmed in nearby Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor, usually in one of the staff hostels.
RYAN AND RONNIE (1971-1973)
The career of ‘the Welsh Morecambe and Wise’ may have ended tragically – namely, sudden death and suicide – but Camarthenshire’s Ryan Davies and Ronnie Williams drove homegrown TV to new heights during their heyday. An S4C film about the pair’s lives went on to win several awards at BAFTA Cymru ceremony in 2010.
SATELLITE CITY (1996-1999)
Cherished by many, this BAFTA Cymru winner is arguably one of the most fondly remembered Welsh sitcoms. Co-written by Boyd Clack, who also came up with High Hopes, it tells of an American tourist who winds up in the fictitious south Wales valley of Pen-y-Ceffyl (Horse’s Head) and gets taken in by a clan of misfits called the Princes. It ran for 18 episodes, not including the initial pilot and a one-hour special in 1999.
SHERLOCK (2010-2017)
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ update of Conan Doyle’s classic sleuth proved a huge success when it debuted in 2010, thanks largely to its slick, tricksy plotting and Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s on-screen chemistry. While the pair became a regular sight on the streets of Cardiff during filming, it was left to Andrew Scott’s deliciously OTT master criminal Moriarty to memorably chew the scenery and bark all the best lines. Sherlock was nominated for numerous awards including Emmys, BAFTAs and a Golden Globe, winning several awards across a variety of categories. Production was based at Hartswood Films’ Cardiff production unit, Hartswood Films West. Production of the first two series was based at Upper Boat Studios, where Doctor Who was produced.
Continuing the Welsh connection, Guy Ritchie’s 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which pits Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes against his nemesis Jared Harris’s Moriarty, was shot on location at Capel Curig and Ffynnon Llugwy in Snowdonia.
SPIRIT BREAKER (2017)
The story of a man named Dagenham Dave (Liam Noble), who escapes from an English prison for a crime he didn’t commit, the pilot for this foul-mouth black comedy from Cardiff’s Fun Clamp Productions was made available to stream on Amazon Prime. Best known as Big Mad Andy from Peep Show, the episode follows Noble as he tries to provide for his wife and kids, from selling mobile phone SIM cards to running meat raffles, all the while avoiding the local police.
STELLA (2012-2017)
Gentle comedy set in a fictional village in the south Wales valleys, Stella is a 40-something single mum who earns a living doing the locals’ ironing. We follow her juggling family, the chaos of her eccentric friends, relatives and children’s fathers. Prior to her big breakthrough with Gavin and Stacey, Ruth Jones had always made a big impression in supporting roles – such as opposite Julia Davies in Nighty Nighty and Steve Coogan in Saxondale. The enormously popular Stella, however, saw her take off, the Sky-screened family dramedy having becoming increasingly popular over the course of six well-received series. Comedy/drama series Stella is mainly filmed in Ferndale, Rhondda. One of the most iconic Stella filming locations is Elm Street, the road on which Stella lives.
TELLTALE (1993)
The ever brilliant Robert Pugh played a notorious criminal turned supergrass in this tense three-parter filmed around Barry. Boys From The Black Stuff star Bernard Hill played the distrusting detective sergeant assigned to look after him. It originally aired on HTV Wales.
THE BASTARD EXECUTIONER (2015)
Fictional historical drama set in early 14th-Century Wales, based on the story of knights in the army of King Edward I of England. His biker drama Sons of Anarchy had been a global smash, so excitement levels peaked when its creator Kurt Sutter announced he was to make this show in Wales. Sadly, the saga was cancelled by Sutter himself after only one season due to poor reviews and flagging ratings, despite having pop golden boy Ed Sheeran appear in a cameo and sing the theme tune.
THE CROWN (2016–)
Shot in Caernarfon, north Wales, The Crown isn’t a movie, but each episode is so spectacular it may as well be. Netflix’s The Crown, starring Olivia Coleman and Helena Bonham-Carter, showcases the Royal family like never before. Season three focuses on the 1960’s era of the Royals, including Charles’ investiture as the Prince of Wales, which was filmed in the stunning Caernarfon Castle.
THE DISTRICT NURSE (1984-1987)
A British classic, this ’20s-set TV medical drama starred Nerys Hughes – the then go-to actress for all things Welsh – as titular character Megan Roberts, who spent her time trying to improve the conditions of those in her care in the hard-strapped mining town of Pencwm. In the third and final series the show, which became a hit as far afield as New Zealand and Iran, moved to Aberystwyth.
THE INDIAN DOCTOR (2010-2013)
A BBC Wales comedy drama starring Sanjeev Bhaskar in which a 1960s Welsh mining village is forever changed by the arrival of a new doctor. Predominantly filmed in Blaenavon, it saw the The Kumars at No 42 star play Dr Prem Sharma, who leaves his native Delhi to take up a new post at the fictional mining village of Trefelin.
THE MAGNIFICENT EVANS (1984)
Filmed at Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys, this is an all-but-forgotten chapter in the career of late comedy legend Ronnie Barker. Broadcast by the BBC in 1984 and written by Open All Hours‘ Roy Clarke, it starred Barker as a flamboyant and womanising Welsh photographer, but ran for only one series.
THE PRISONER (1967-1968)
The Prisoner series follows the life of a former British secret agent who is abducted and held prisoner in an unknown coastal town where he is subject to interrogation by his captors in order to unlock any secrets he may be hiding. The exteriors for most of the series were actually filmed in Portmeirion village near Porthmadog, north Wales, and indeed the location itself partially inspired the show. At the request of Portmeirion’s architect Clough Williams-Ellis, the main location for the series in Wales was not disclosed until the opening credits of the very last episode.
THE TUCKERS (2019)
Character-led comedy set in the Welsh valleys, featuring the close-knit Tucker family, who are determined to survive through any means necessary.
THE VALLEYS (2012-2014)
This MTV-made, Cardiff-set take on reality shows like Geordie Shore made five-minute celebrities out of its contestants – although watching a whole episode required sitting in a dark room afterwards with a cold compress on your forehead.
TORCHWOOD (2006-2011)
If you’ve ever thought that Wales would be the perfect gateway for aliens and general sci-fi monsters to enter planet Earth, well, Torchwood may well have been the show for you. Created by Russell T Davies, you can still find shrines to the series around Cardiff Bay, the location which plays a starring role in this BBC series. The Hub, Torchwood’s secret headquarters, is located underground in Roald Dahl Plass, beneath William Pye’s stainless steel Water Tower sculpture. The Wales Millennium Centre often appears as a backdrop.
Torchwood is spin-off from the 2005 revival of Doctor Who which aired four series between 2006 and 2011. The show shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from BBC Three to BBC Two to BBC One, and acquiring US financing in its fourth series when it became a co-production of BBC One and Starz. As well as science-fiction, the show explores a number of themes, including existentialism, homosexuality, bisexuality and human corruptibility. During the production of the 2005 series of Doctor Who, the word ‘Torchwood’ (an anagram of ‘Doctor Who’) had been used as a title ruse for the series while filming its first few episodes to ensure they were not intercepted.
Torchwood follows the exploits of a small team of alien-hunters, who make up the fictional Torchwood Institute which deals mainly with incidents involving extraterrestrials. Its central character is Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), an immortal con-man from the distant future; Jack originally appeared in the 2005 series of Doctor Who. The initial main cast of the series consisted of Gareth David-Lloyd, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Eve Myles. Their characters are specialists for the Torchwood team, often tracking down aliens and defending the planet from alien and nefarious human threats.
In its first two series, the show uses a time rift in Cardiff as its primary plot generator, accounting for the unusual preponderance of alien beings in Cardiff. In the third and fourth series, Torchwood operate as fugitives.
All four televised series have been broadcast in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Owing to the early popularity of Torchwood, various tie-in media were produced, including audio dramas, novels and comic strips. From its inception, the BBC invested in a heavy online presence for the series, with an alternate reality game running alongside the show’s first two series, and an animated Web series running alongside its fourth.
For the fourth series, Miracle Day, Davies secured several popular US television writers, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer Jane Espenson; The X-Files, Star Trek: Enterprise and Supernatural writer John Shiban; and House writer Doris Egan. Jane Espenson noted that as a series Torchwood “is willing to go to horrible places”.
On its location in the Welsh capital, Davies commented: “With Doctor Who we often had to pretend that bits of Cardiff were London, or Utah, or the planet Zog. Whereas this series is honest-to-God Cardiff. We will happily walk past the Millennium Centre and say, ‘Look, there’s the Millennium Centre’.”
The first two series of Torchwood were both filmed and set in Cardiff. The makers of Torchwood deliberately portray Cardiff as a modern urban centre, contrasting with past stereotypical portrayals of Wales. “There’s not a male voice choir … or a miner in sight.” said BBC Wales Controller Menna Richards. Filming has also taken place outside of Cardiff, including in Merthyr Tydfil. Other locations include Canal Park, Merthyr Road in Whitchurch and the Waterguard Pub. In Torchwood: Miracle Day, Gwen Cooper lives at The Old Rectory on Rhossili Bay, a cottage owned by the National Trust.
The team’s headquarters during the first two series, referred to as The Hub, was beneath Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff Bay – formerly known as the Oval Basin. This is where the TARDIS landed in the Doctor Who episodes Boom Town and Utopia to refuel, and is the location of the spacetime rift first seen in The Unquiet Dead. The Hub had two means of access: a lift that rose to the plass next to the fountain (camouflaged by a perception filter), and a more mundane entrance hidden in a tourism office. Production crew were keen to use everything Wales had to offer in filming the series; for example, the military base scenes in Sleeper and the booby-trapped abandoned warehouse scenes in Fragments were filmed at RAF Caerwent, near Chepstow.
In April 2007, Torchwood beat its parent series, which is also made in Wales, to win the Best Drama Series category at the BAFTA Cymru Awards. Eve Myles won the Best Actress category at the same awards, ahead of Doctor Who‘s Billie Piper.
The 2009 Television Serial Children of Earth, which served as Torchwood’s third series, won a further BAFTA Cymru award for best Drama Series as well as a Saturn Award for Best Television Presentation during the 36th Saturn Awards and a 2010 Celtic Media Festival Award for best drama series.
WATCHMEN (2019)
Watchmen is an American superhero drama series set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and based on the 1986 DC Comics graphic novel of the same title, created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The action takes place in a dystopian alternate reality where superheroes changed the course of history since they emerged in the 1940s.
The TV series’ ensemble cast includes Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Andrew Howard, Jacob Ming-Trent, Tom Mison, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Louis Gossett Jr and Jeremy Irons as Adrian Veidt, with Jean Smart and Hong Chau joining the cast in later episodes.
Adrian’s mansion was filmed in Penrhyn Castle, Bangor, north Wales. This magnificent National Trust property, with views over the gorgeous Snowdonia National Park, provided the exterior and all interiors for the series. Penrhyn Castle was recreated as a 3D model for use in CGI scenes in some episodes.
WILL (2017)
Perhaps the biggest budget US TV production ever to be shot in Wales, it tells the wild story of young William Shakespeare amongst the seductive, violent world of 16th-Century London. Filmed at Dragon Studios in Bridgend and screened by US cable giant TNT, it stars newcomer Laurie Davidson, Con Air‘s Colm Meany and Trainspotting‘s Ewen Bremner.
Y PRIS (2007-2009)
Tackling Welsh gangsters in Carmarthenshire, this was an attempt by S4C’s drama editor Angharad Jones to get younger audiences tuning into the station. Dubbed as ‘The Sopranos by the Seaside’ at the time of airing, it had everything from sex and guns to cockle picking!
35 DIWRNOD (2014-)
Taking the Columbo approach – ie, starting the show with someone’s murder – 35 Diwrnod goes one step further and takes the viewer to 35 days (hence the title) before said death and traces the victim’s last month alive. With each episode different suspects are thrown into the mix until you’re not sure who wants who killed the most!
In addition to the main list above, here are a few modern-day travel shows and documentaries about Wales worth a look, if you can find them:
Hidden Wales (2019). Will Millard discovers Wales’s hidden history, exploring some secret and almost inaccessible locations, showing the country as it has never been seen before.
Wales, Land of the Wild (2019). Features the varied wildlife and stunning landscapes of Wales, from rugged mountains of the north to the seabird colonies off the west coast.
Gareth Edwards’ Great Welsh Adventure (2019). Gareth Edwards and wife Maureen explore the country via narrowboat.
Anorac (2018). Huw Stephens travels across Wales searching out the heroes of the Welsh language pop scene.
Iolo’s Snowdonia (2018). Iolo Williams explores the wilds of Snowdonia.
Roald Dahl, Great Welsh Writers (2018). The untold story of Roald Dahl’s Welsh childhood.
DID EWE KNOW? More fascinating facts about Wales
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