S4C’s Y Llais could help us all find our Welsh voice

Matt Howells

Forgive me, father for I have sinned and I have a confession to make.

I’m a middle-aged first-language Welsh speaker and I hate the Eisteddfod.

I detest rugby even more. I was never a member of the Urdd and I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than vote for Plaid Cymru.

The sound of male voice choirs is complete dirge and Gavin and Stacey is deeply unfunny. Where do I hand in my Welsh card?

No wait, I’ll be holding on to it for now. Something has changed my mind and given the controversy caused by the searing eviscerations in my previous articles on life in modern Wales, my flabber has been well and truly gasted, and I intend to reverse my inner Welsh ferret for you, dear reader.

Global Wales

Why? Because for the first time in what feels like decades, I have seen a true depiction of Wales on TV.

What am I talking about? S4C’s ‘Y Llais’.

For the uninitiated, the show is the Welsh version of the global singing TV show ‘The Voice’ which was conceived in the Netherlands before making its debut in the UK in 2012.

It’s been broadcast every year since, moving from BBC One to ITV, with a spin-off show for children.

Its winners have gone on to achieve more anonymity than people in witness protection but there’s something about those spinning chairs and the far more civilised nature of the production than other singing competitions and reality shows that keeps audiences coming back for more.

The first episode aired on Sunday evening, and it was a bit surreal to see a big budget show with slick production values on S4C.

Indeed, as a long-term viewer of the channel, I have grown increasingly concerned at the direction of its programming, with far too many light-touch, wallpaper entertainment shows and its pivot to what I would consider to be ‘woke’ content that simply doesn’t reflect its audience.

A quick scan of their catch-up service menu confirms my view that there is very little in the way of documentaries, shows that discuss the arts and literature, there is almost nothing for the academic, the intelligent, or the religious but I do understand that this is a tiny TV station which is both a national and community channel.

They will never please everyone and have to get viewers any way they can.

But I think ‘Y Llais’ may change this.

Inclusive

This was an organically inclusive programme, and the contestants featured in the first episode showed me more of Wales and the reality of Welshness than wall-to-wall coverage of the Eisteddfod does every August.

Given how small Wales is, it was refreshing that every face was new, something judge Yws Gwynedd himself expressed delight at.

Some were fluent Welsh speakers, some were ‘half-rice, half chips’ as I like to call them, and some didn’t speak a word but sang their heart out in perfectly enunciated Cymraeg.

Highlights included the Cofi/Kerdiff hip-hop duo, the hilarious lady from Port Talbot who murdered ‘Dacw Nghariad’ and the young mother and nurse who gave it her all, but sadly didn’t make it to the next round.

For me, the best was kept until last with 32-year-old Troedyrhiw primary teacher Emma Winter belting out judge Bronwen Lewis’ song ‘Ti a Fi’.

Bronwen herself competed in 2013 but wasn’t selected by the judges of the time but went on to have a successful career, most recently as a DJ on Radio Wales and as a TikTok star singing translated hits in Welsh.

‘Ti a fi’ has a beautiful melody with cloying lyrics, and was sung perfectly, with Sir Bryn Terfel being first to turn and congratulating her on her prefect Welsh pronunciation.

And there it was, a globally renowned opera singer addressing a humble valleys teacher in the kindest way, bridging one of the world’s most brutal linguistic divides.

It was, for want of a better word, magic.

And therein lies the success of the format.

Irony

Yes, it has your typical drinking-bleach-for-attention sob stories, but there is a warmth and humanity in this show that lends itself perfectly to Wales and the way we are.

There is a wonderful irony that such a global show could feel so unashamedly, potently Welsh.

That’s not to say the programme didn’t have its issues, such as the incongruous casting of Aleighcia Scott as a judge, whom I don’t believe has had the same success as the other judges and whose Welsh, even as a learner, isn’t really up to broadcasting standard, but one can only admire her sass and frisky attitude.

‘Y Llais’ reminds us in the most gorgeous way that we’re a total mess of a nation.

Fractured, fissured, and only half-arsed.

We’re divided by language, wealth, region, the list goes on. And we’re only 3.1 million people!

Wales drives me completely nuts (which is why I ended up moving abroad five times and am now living in Australia), but what a beautiful mess we are, and I think that’s something worth holding on to.

This is something that ‘Y Llais’ has managed to crack and I hope that it may inspire us to find our own individual voices as Welsh people, on our own terms.

A fix of home

For this Cardi who was bullied into playing rugby at school, forced into singing in choirs, and persecuted for being ‘the wrong type of Welsh’, this show is testament to what Welsh people are actually like, not who we should be.

Free from the constraints of a poorly attended pavilion in the middle of a random field, free of the incestuous stage of ‘Cân i Gymru’ with no Mistar Urdd in sight, this is Welsh television at its most accessible and entertaining.

In August, the National Eisteddfod comes to Wrexham.

You couldn’t pay me to go there and the way it’s presented as the nucleus of Welsh culture is deeply misleading and wrong. But now I know what to watch on TV if I want to see the real Wales and get my fix of home.

Diolch yn fawr, S4C.

Watch Y Llais on S4C Clic and iPlayer now.