A Welsh dream factory

The idea of a 'A Welsh Dream Factory' delights columnist Dan O'Neill. "Work is under way on 'Valleywood', the £300m movie studios near Bridgend where, it's hoped, Welsh-flavoured epics might be made. ... An exciting prospect – but Hollywood got there first, with just about the Welshiest-flavoured Welsh epic California's script writers could devise. And exactly 65 years ago this week they were lining up all along Queen Street for seats in the old Empire Cinema to see... 'How Green was My Valley'. By the time it came to Cardiff, it had already won the Oscar for best picture ... The enormous set, every exile's dream of home, cost 20th Century Fox $110,000. It took up 200 acres in the hills north of Los Angeles and earned an Oscar for the designers. But not much dust or smoke or clank of coal wagons about, making one crusty critic label it all 'prettified and unconvincing', ... now maybe, Valleywood can have another go. If they can find a traditional mining community anywhere...".

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