The Way -- Celtic Weird at its best........
Around 2015-2016 there was a lot of discussion in the media about "the portrayal of Wales", encouraged by a Senedd Committee set up to investigate the output (in Wales) of high-end drama in film and on TV. An Open University article included these words:
".........the Welsh national character is portrayed as anti-imperial, tolerant and internationalist, by contrast with the English, who are perceived as colonialist and racist. This is, of course, a part of national myth making and cannot be supported by available historical or contemporary evidence. However, it is a deeply held and powerful belief."
Almost a decade has passed since this was published:
.........and a lot of it still holds. But many films and TV series have been shown and broadcast since then, and the stereotypes are still being perpetrated. Maybe we see fewer coal mines and male voice choirs than we did back in the day, and its good to see a regular stream of productions taking advantage of the new opportunities for streaming (on Netflix, Amazon Prime etc) and appearing on the mainstream BBC and ITV channels. With S4C playing a pivotal role in the commissioning of new material, there was always a danger that the production companies would concentrate their efforts on small-scale and cheap productions for "internal consumption." But that hasn't happened, and many of the better productions have been reviewed in mainstream media and watched by large audiences across the UK and the rest of the world. So one is justified in asking this question: what does the rest of the world think about Wales, as it is portrayed on the large and the small screen?
One needs to do a proper study to find the answer to that, and in the meantime we can but speculate. In 2013, along came "Hinterland", to be followed by "Hidden" and "Keeping Faith" to confirm that Celtic Noir was really embraced in Wales, having already had a great success across the UK with "Shetland". Celtic Noir was accepted as a genre across the world, while never quite acquiring the status of Scandi Noir, which is still going strong (one series after another, many of them on the Viaplay streaming channel.) This is all rather subjective, but my feeling is that Welsh drama output has become a bit messy in the last 5 years, with series like "The Light in the Hall", "Wolf", and "Dal y Mellt" lurking in the shadows and "Pitching In" and "The Valleys", which were supposed to be funny, turning out to be disasters. But in spite of the brilliance of "Men Up", there is more dark than light. and we now seem to have moved on from Celtic Noir to Celtic Weird. How else to interpret "The Way" and "Tree on a Hill", two pretentious, chaotic and utterly dreadful series that I gave up on after the first episode. I know of many other viewers who did the same, and others who switched channels after just a few minutes.
Some comments on the web:
"I really, really wanted to like The Way, especially as it's filmed locally; but so far, it's been nearly 40 minutes of pretentious drivel."
"TheWay on BBC1. Contender for worst drama of the decade."
"I really, really wanted to like The Way, especially as it's filmed locally; but so far, it's been nearly 40 minutes of pretentious drivel."
"TheWay on BBC1. Contender for worst drama of the decade."
"Can't we have a drama set in Wales that isn't grim? Wales is a beautiful place full of diverse people, every drama that comes out of Wales is daft and grim......"
So now the message about Wales that goes out into the world is that male voice choirs and coal mines have been replaced as icons by ranting martyrs, despairing communities and nutters, portrayed by writers and directors who are more interested in surrealism and innovation than in good stories, well told. So where next, I wonder?
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