Award-winning Welsh director awarded honorary degree from Swansea University

A multi-award-winning Welsh TV and film director whose credits include Doctor Who, Happy Valley, Black Mirror, Broadchurch, and Heartstopper has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Swansea University.

Euros Lyn was born in Cardiff in 1971 and was raised in Guyana in South America, in Gwynedd, north Wales, and in Ynystawe in the Swansea Valley. 

He was educated in Welsh at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Ystalyfera, before graduating with first class honours in Drama from The University of Manchester.

Doctor Who relaunch

After completing his degree, Euros Lyn worked as an assistant director on Welsh-language programmes for S4C. His career changed gear when he took on the director role alongside the Swansea-born showrunner Russell T. Davies on the relaunched Doctor Who series in 2005. He directed 12 episodes between 2005-2010, for which he won a BAFTA Cymru Best Director award and a Hugo Award.

Euros Lyn has won BAFTA Cymru Best Director several times, most recently for Kiri, starring Sarah Lancashire. He also directed Fifteen Million Merits, part of the Black Mirror anthology for Channel 4, which won an International Emmy for Best Drama Series.

He directed three episodes of the opening series of Broadchurch, two seasons of Last Tango in Halifax, the pilot episode of Happy Valley, and the single drama Damilola, Our Loved Boy, all four shows winning BAFTA awards.

In 2015 he received the BAFTA Cymru Siân Phillips Award for a significant contribution to either a major feature film or network TV programme – the only director to date to receive this prominent award.

Career success

Euros Lyn has also directed three feature films. In 2016, he directed Y Llyfrgell/ The Library Suicides, a thriller which starred the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth as the unlikely location of murder and intrigue. Following a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, his film, Dream Horse, starring Toni Collette and Damian Lewis, was released in theatres in 2021 and follows the true story of Dream Alliance, an unlikely racehorse that eventually raced in the Welsh Grand National. His latest film, The Radleys, based on Matt Haig’s vampire novel, will be released next year on Sky Cinema.

In his most recent small screen hit, the LGBTQ+ coming-of-age series Heartstopper, Euros Lyn has returned to material that obviously speaks to him on a deeper level – reflecting and giving voice to the emotional and societal challenges faced by young people in the 21^st century. Based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, the uplifting and highly-acclaimed Netflix series offers a tangible but heartwarming portrayal of Charlie and Nick’s love story and the changing relationship experiences of their teenage friends.

Today, despite a career on the international stage, Euros has set down roots in south Wales, and lives in Llangennith with his husband Craig, and dog, Brychan.

On receiving his honorary award, Euros Lyn said: “I’m thrilled to receive an honorary degree from Swansea University, and am excited to be involved with the university’s School of Culture and Communication, who are educating and training the next generation of writers, directors and technicians to create the hit TV shows and films of the future.”