Welsh TV

Inside the St David’s Hotel

St David's Hotel and Spa

It can’t have escaped many people’s attention but at a lot of British television is now being made in Cardiff, including Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who, Casualty (soon) and, of course, big chunks of S4C’s output, including the perennial Pobol Y Cwm.

Not many actors live in Cardiff, though, so where do they stay? The Beeb does have some flats on Cardiff Bay where it puts up actors, but a lot of the time, they end up in the St David’s Hotel and Spa (pictured above. Photo copyright to me. It’s mine.). And, at least one actor is known to take his (usually blonde) conquests there on occasion.

What’s it like inside? Lush, to be honest – and I’ve been there a few times now. But those of you living an inconvenient distance away from Cardiff or who live in Cardiff but have never worked up the courage to go in might well be wondering what it’s like inside – if only to plan your outfit and shoes to suit the decor, should you intend on being one of the aforementioned conquests.

Stop wondering – here’s Caerdydd to show you.

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Monday’s “Thank God you’re back” news

Doctor Who

Awards

Film

Theatre

French TV

  • TF1 may cut back on French productions in favour of US imports

British TV

US TV

Thursday’s Matt Smith news

Doctor Who

Film

Theatre

British TV

US TV

BFI events

Preview: Being Human

In the UK: Sundays, 9pm, BBC3. Starts January 25th
In the US: BBC America (it’s a co-prod). No airdate yet

Firstly, this ain’t the usual kind of preview since it also includes a rundown of a Q&A with the show’s producers and one of its stars, Russell Tovey.

Secondly, I’d like to announce that I’m a cretin (although you’d probably realised that for yourselves). There I was last Friday, feeling all pleased with myself that for once, I’d not had to run for trains, sprint across Hungerford Bridge, etc, to get to a screening on time, because I’d given myself plenty of time to get there. So what should happen when I got there? Why, I discovered I’d got the start time wrong and the screening had begun half an hour earlier. Oops.

So that minor act of spasness aside, let’s get on with a preview not just of the first episode (or at least the second half of the first episode) of Being Human, BBC3’s forthcoming drama about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, but of the rest of the series, too, as well as that wee chat with the producers.

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Russell Tovey and Julie Gardner talk Doctor Who

In advance of my Being Human preview, which should pop up either today or tomorrow depending on work, I thought I’d give you a few Doctor Who nuggets that emerged from the Q&A following the showing of the first episode at the BFI on Friday.

Present – as advertised – was Russell Tovey, who appeared in the Christmas special The Voyage of the Damned and was once tipped as a front-runner for the part of the Doctor by Russell T Davies no less, and Matthew Bouch, producer of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Also present, but not as advertised since it was originally going to be BBC3 controller Danny Cohen, was Julie Gardner, head of drama for BBC Wales and exec producer for Doctor Who.

There wasn’t that much said about Who, for obvious reasons, but a few little anecdotes emerged.

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