The campaign to keep the Welsh language alive has just found a powerful ally. Netflix is streaming ‘Dal y Mellt’, the streaming platform’s first ever Welsh-language series next month, according to BBC News.
Landing on Netflix in April, ‘Dal y Mellt’ (‘Catch the Lightning’) will join the Wye-set ‘Sex Education’ in bringing a bit of the valleys to our front rooms.
It’s a crime thriller that zigzags between the back streets of Cardiff, Soho, Porthmadog in north Wales and Holyhead in Anglesey, following a man called Carbo (Gwïon Morris Jones) through a world of betrayal, secrets and heartbreak.
Also in the cast is ‘Master and Commander’s Mark Lewis Jones and ‘Mindhorn’ actress Lois Meleri-Jones.
‘Dal y Mellt’ is adapted from a 2019 novel by Iwan ‘Iwcs’ Roberts, who also produces. ‘People ask what I’d compare it to,’ says Roberts, ‘“Peaky Blinders”, Guy Ritchie's stuff? No, I want people to say, it's like “Dal y Mellt”. I am firm in the belief that this is a Welsh language drama created for the people of Wales, because frankly, the Welsh deserve it.
The six-episode series originally screened on Welsh language free-to-air channel S4C in 2022.
‘This is fantastic news for Welsh language drama,’ says S4C's CEO Sian Doyle. ‘The popularity of international dramas on Netflix globally proves there is an appetite for exciting quality drama regardless of language.’
Netflix, meanwhile, said that it hoped that it could play a role in helping to ‘promote and preserve the Welsh language’. It seems to be as good as its word: Ryan Reynolds’ action-thriller ‘Red Notice’ was the first on the streamer to come with Welsh subtitle in 2021.