Welsh TV

You wouldn’t know it from the BFI’s celebration of 25 years of Channel 4 and S4C, but S4C does in fact produce television programmes, some of them quite good. Have a look at Caerdydd. Go on. It’s good.

But it would be a mistake to think this is a recent development. A case in point is A Mind to Kill, Wales’ answer to Taggart. Starring Welsh man-god Philip Madoc as widower Detective Inspector Noel Bain, A Mind to Kill was a dark and gritty 1991 TV movie about neo-Nazis set and filmed in South Wales.

Shot in both English and Welsh – as (Noson) yr Heliwr (which, I think means either The Night Hunter or Hunter in the Night. Anyone?) – the film, the charismatic Bain and the series format proved popular enough that a series of sequel films was made, running for five series from 1994 to 2004 – even making the transition to the rest of the UK by airing on Five. Yet almost nobody remembers it.

Praise be, then, the first series is being released on DVD by Network on March 16th.

Continue reading “Review: A Mind to Kill – series one”