TV Series Bang, Welsh crime drama

[Pauline]

A new crime drama set in Port Talbot, Wales. Filmed in both Welsh and English. Subtitles on iPlayer but not on original broadcast (also on Friday night repeat). It is on a channel that I was not aware of - S4C (Welsh language broadcaster).

http://www.s4c.cymru/en/drama/bang/

The Guardian - Welsh-English bilingual drama seeks to replicate success of Scandi noir
Creators of S4C crime drama series Bang, set in Port Talbot, hope it will win Welsh- and English-speaking audiences

We have not watched this yet, but it looks interesting.

 

[PatrickLondon]

S4C was set up to broadcast all the Welsh language offerings of the other channels, where they had to compete for slots in the schedules in the relatively few channels available at that time, in the early 80s. (I can remember when the BBC's one and only channel used to show Welsh language news, even in London, at lunchtime).

I was a bit surprised by the PR for this programme, because the BBC had already produced three series of Hinterland, also obviously based on the "Scandi noir" style (i.e., lots of washed-out grey-green colour) and also produced in both Welsh and English language versions (with characters slipping in and out of Welsh in the English language version).

(For the sake of completeness, I should also point that the BBC has a Gaelic language channel, BBC Alba).

 

[Pauline]

We watched Hinterland on Netflix this summer. It was very dark - filmed in winter with bare trees and overcast skies. I liked it, but the episodes are very similar in structure. Netflix forgot where we were in one episode and we could not even remember which mystery we had been watching, so we gave up.

The scenes in Aberystwyth, on the coast of Wales, made me want to visit that area. Next summer I think!