Setting
The setting for the show is the (fictional) village of Cwmderi, located in the (real) Gwendraeth Valley – an area lying between Carmarthen and Llanelli in south-west Wales. By no means all of the cast speak with local, Carmarthenshire accents, however. Indeed, the fact that there are "incomers" from other Welsh-speaking parts of Wales in the village is one of the programme's features. Much of the activity centres 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 imaginary villages close to Cwmderi, namely Llanarthur and Cwrt Mynach.
While most of the cast are largely unknown to the English-speaking world, Ioan Gruffudd – who later became an international film star – played the part of Gareth Wyn Harries between 1987 and 1994. Other well-known faces who have appeared include Rachel Thomas, Huw Garmon, Gillian Elisa, Ieuan Rhys, Aneirin Hughes, and Gwenno Saunders (of The Pipettes). In October 2006, Imogen Thomas made a cameo appearance.
Gareth Lewis (who played pub landlord Meic Pierce) is the seventh longest-serving actor in a continuous role in British television soap history, while Gwyn Elfyn played the part of village shopkeeper Denzil Rees continuously for nearly 28 years from 1984, making him in January 2012 the tenth longest-serving actor still appearing in a United Kingdom soap opera role.
Read more about this topic: Pobol Y Cwm
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When I consider the clouds stretched in stupendous masses across the sky, frowning with darkness or glowing with downy light, or gilded with the rays of the setting sun, like the battlements of a city in the heavens, their grandeur appears thrown away on the meanness of my employment; the drapery is altogether too rich for such poor acting. I am hardly worthy to be a suburban dweller outside those walls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Only in the problem play is there any real drama, because drama is no mere setting up of the camera to nature: it is the presentation in parable of the conflict between Man’s will and his environment: in a word, of problem.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)