As with Keeping Faith, The Light in the Hall first aired in its native Welsh (Y Golau, which translates to The Light) before the English-language production arrived on our screens.
The six-part drama stars Game of Thrones and Misfits’ Iwan Rheon as Joe Pritchard, who has just been released from prison after serving time for murdering teenager Ela Roberts. Joe has never revealed what happened that fateful day, or disclosed the location of Ela’s body, questions her mother Sharon (Joanna Scanlan) desperately wants answers to.
But when Ela’s former best friend Cat Donato (Alexandra Roach), who is now a journalist, returns to her hometown with those same questions for a story she’s writing, tensions reach breaking point.
The narrative is set against a backdrop that is both beautiful and bleak, depending on mood and perspective.
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RadioTimes.com spoke to the main cast about the location and what it was like filming there.
The Light in the Hall filming locations
“This is actually where I grew up,” said Roach. “It’s Carmarthenshire in west Wales. We were filming in Llandeilo, in that area, and it is beautiful. I’ve lived away for the best part of 15 years now and coming back, seeing autumn into winter, and the mountains and the lakes, and the people, I’m so excited for people to see this part of the world on a bigger scale.
“When you live somewhere, maybe you don’t appreciate it. It’s gorgeous.”
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During his downtime, Rheon would take himself on “big, long walks”, with Dinefwr Castle one of the spots nearby.
“The light in the morning was really beautiful,” he said. “It’s such a stunning part of the world. You could almost say that the scenery is another character in the series.”
For Scanlan, the show challenges the “misconception about Wales that everywhere’s quite similar”.
She explained: “Each valley is different from the next, and the Tywi Valley is just so exquisite. It’s a place that’s had some kind of prosperity because the land is really, really fertile. It’s the richest, most gorgeous soil and you think, ‘Ah! OK! That’s the reason why this valley has beautiful homes in amazing Georgian towns with whole histories of drovers and life.
“This is a place of fertility. I always felt that the Tywi Valley is unusual. It’s not like the kind of Wales that I come from, which is massive mountains and sheep farming, a very different vibe. I just found this to be a haven or a cradle, and I didn’t want to leave. It’s a beautiful place.”
The Light in the Hall airs on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9pm on Channel 4. All six episodes are available to stream now on All4.
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