Series of events to celebrate broadcasting in Wales
A series of special events will celebrate Welsh broadcasting, its stars and their contribution to the country’s screen and sound heritage.
The first three events from Wales Broadcast Archive and its partners, BBC Cymru Wales, ITV Cymru Wales and S4C will give a platform to individuals from the world of drama, comedy, presenting and journalism, with stories about their life, work and career drawing on rare clips from the archive.
The world renowned actor and star of Y Gwyll / Hinterland, Richard Harrington, will be interviewed by presenter Ffion Dafis in the first event on October 26.
On November 30, the comedian, singer and presenter Caryl Parry Jones will reminisce and sing a few songs with Ffion again at the helm. Both events will be held at the National Library for Wales in Aberystwyth.
The third event is a special evening at Carmarthen Library’s Clip Corner. On January 25 next year, there will be an evening in the company of BBC Radio Wales presenters past and present, hosted by Dot Davies.
Dot will interview journalist Gilbert John, presenter Roy Noble and reggae star and presenter Aleighcia Scott. In addition, the audience will have a look at old clips from the archive showing news and events from Carmarthen’s history.
Protected
Tickets are now on sale for all three events on the library’s website: events.library.wales
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Welsh Government and the national library, the Wales Broadcast Archive aims to ensure that Welsh broadcasting heritage is protected and shared with the public.
Dafydd Tudur, archive project manager for the national library, said: “It’s a great pleasure to be able to announce the first events in the Wales Broadcast Archive Presents series which begins a wide programme of activities to be held over the next year.
“Our intention is to open the doors of the national library to more people, extend a welcome to people from near and far and in doing so encourage people to come and search the Wales Broadcast Archive for audio and video.
“The purpose of the archive is to celebrate the broadcasting heritage of Wales and we are really excited about creating opportunities for audiences old and new to understand more about the archive and how to access it.”
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Whilst it’s good that the Wales Broadcast Library exists, the fact that it’s located in Aberystwyth and not accessible online means that anyone wanting to see anything in the archive has to traipse all the way to Aberystwyth in order to do so.
Hopefully one day it will all be available on demand so that the treasures that the archive no doubt contains are available to a far wider audience. Perhaps a curated service on the lines of the BFI Player service?
It’s free to use if you’re prepared to go there, though. Until the archive goes online, a visit to the National Library is a great day out.