7 January 2021

Filming work has begun on Yr Amgueddfa (The Museum) – an original new drama that will also offer S4C viewers a brand-new genre – the heritage thriller - for the first time on the channel.

Coming to our screens in the spring, Yr Amgueddfa, is set in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff – and takes us into the dark and dangerous world of art crime.

DELA HOWELLS (Nia Roberts) is a successful woman – a faithful wife to her husband ALUN (Steffan Rhodri) and a loving mother to two children DANIEL (Samuel Morgan-Davies) and MAGS (Mared Jarman). She has just accepted the post of director general of the museum and life is good.

On the same night that she is celebrating her new job in a party at the museum, she meets a young man CALEB (Steffan Cennydd), who has come along as the guest of her gay son Daniel. Dela is totally entranced by Caleb and falls into a passionate relationship with him. But Dela soon discovers that Caleb has some more sinister reasons for beginning a relationship with her.

Boom Cymru (35 Diwrnod - Parti Plu, Parch) is producing the drama, which stars some of Wales's best-known actors including Nia Roberts (Y Gwyll/Hinterland, Bang, The Crown, Craith/Hidden), Steffan Rhodri (Gavin and Stacey, A Very English Scandal), Sharon Morgan (Pobol y Cwm, Martha, Jac a Sianco) and Delyth Wyn (35 Diwrnod).

There are also some new faces in the cast including Steffan Cennydd (Craith/Hidden, Enid a Lucy), who stars as Caleb, and Samuel Morgan-Davies and Mared Jarman playing Dela's children, Dan and Marged.

Bafta Award-winning author Fflur Dafydd has created and scripted Yr Amgueddfa and she is working once again with the experienced director Paul Jones who has produced dramas including 35 Awr, Con Passionate, Martha, Jac a Sianco and Parch.

Fflur admits that she is obsessed with Welsh institutions – it was she who wrote Y Llyfrgell (The Library) and turned it into a film of the same name based at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Fflur said: "It's nice to be able to draw attention to Wales's institutions in a more creative way. It is some sort of mission in my work – going after things which feel a little bit invisible even though they are huge and important. Through the heritage thriller genre it feels that I am creating something which is totally unique to Wales, and because conventional thrillers are becoming a little bit old-hat, it's quite nice to go after crime in the art world, where there are excitement and secrets of a different sort."

Paul Jones from production company Boom said: "I remember as a young child being dragged by the scruff of my neck through the National Muesum's lofty galleries and then in my teenage years the galleries were a place to shelter from the rain on many a Saturday afternoon. Now with Yr Amgueddfa, I have the opportunity to visit once again, but this time creating a drama full of deception and plotting within its walls."

Boom Cymru will be following all guidelines, legislation and protocols put in place by Welsh Government in order to ensure that filming is carried out safely.