Catrin Dafydd Q&A
How would you describe Ar y Tracs?
Its a comedy drama which is innately and totally Welsh about characters who work on the train line between Swansea and London. The core characters are the staff who work in the station at Swansea and we also get to meet their families. All kinds of situations arise and we witness life on the train and literally follow the main characters' journey in both a literal and emotional sense. All sorts of tensions and themes are touched upon in the run up to Christmas. It's a fusion of life's complications.
What kind of characters will we meet?
They are all characters I really hope people will like. Sophie Thomas is the train manager. She's the glue between the characters. Reality's one aim in life is to find fame and he will try for any reality show in his quest. He's quite a "Swansea boy". Then there's Gwenci his friend who follows him everywhere like a shadow. Eluned, Reality's mum, is a real Welsh matriarch and forms the third side of this triangle.
The main thing Ruth and I wanted to convey through the script was the innate Welsh warmth which is part of the character of the people of Wales. We wanted that warmth and closeness to pervade so that the viewing audience would feel that the situations and characters were familiar.
We both had the same goal - to convey today's Wales and to get under the skin of the characters from Wales and portray their warmth, their ups and their downs but with an emphasis on plenty of fun.
Is this the first time for you to write a drama for television?
I am part of the Pobol y Cwm scriptwriting team but this is the first single drama for me to co-write for S4C and I really enjoyed the experience. It's made me keen to do more. Working for Tidy Productions was a lot of fun. I was able to go down to the set to see the actors at work and there was always a nice happy atmosphere.
How did the invitation to work with Ruth arise?
Somebody recommended my novel Random Deaths and Custard to David Peet, Ruth's husband and they contacted me soon after to say that they had enjoyed the novel and would I like to consider working with the team on a project they had planned for their company Tidy Productions.
I'm a huge fan of Ruth and the Gavin and Stacey series so it was a great honour for me to receive the invitation to work with her. I think we are on the same wavelength from the point of view of our writing because the same type of Anglo- Welsh characters appear in my book Random Deaths and Custard as do in Gavin and Stacey.
Ruth and her husband had the original idea for Ar y Tracs and then we worked on developing the script and the characters during the spring, travelling back and forth between Cardiff and Carmarthen to write.
Co-writing with Ruth has been such fun. We would semi perform our ideas to each other and we would both bounce ideas off the other. I have of course learnt a huge amount from Ruth and the two of us have different skills which ultimately strengthened our teamwork.
Working with someone else is a different dynamic. You work closely together in the same room for 7 or 8 hours and naturally inhabit the imaginary world you have created.
How did you get on ?
Ruth is a lot of fun to be with and the experience of co-writing was enthralling. Ruth is a very warm person and by now a good friend. What is so special about her is her fantastic talent but she's willing to listen to new ideas. She also loves co-writing as she has done with James Cordon on Gavin and Stacey.
The two of us would text each other ideas, especially if one of us was travelling on a train and saw something interesting or overheard a line which would be useful in the script.
So what's next for you ?
I have just returned from visiting a friend in Australia which was great, so I'm now looking forward to spending a quiet Christmas with friends and family and to have a little rest before the New Year. I have a follow up to my novel Random Deaths and Custard on the go and a variety of other exciting projects.