Alys (TV series)

Alys
Title card for Season Two
Genre	Drama
Created by	Siwan Jones
Written by	Siwan Jones
Directed by	Gareth Bryn Lee Haven-Jones Rhys Powys Dylan Richards
Starring	Sara Lloyd-Gregory full main cast
Composer(s)	Strange Village
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	Welsh (main language) English (partly spoken)
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	16 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jon Williams
Producer(s)	Paul Jones
Location(s)	Barry, Vale of Glamorgan • Brecon • Cardiff
Editor(s)	Dafydd Hunt
Camera setup	HD video (film look) Single-camera setup
Running time	52–56 minutes
Production company(s)	Apollo
Distributor	Boomerang
Release
Original network	S4C S4C Clirlun (HD)
Picture format	576i (16:9 SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Audio format	Dolby Digital 5.1
Original release	23 January 2011 – 30 December 2012
External links
Website

Alys is a Welsh-language television drama series created by BAFTA Award-winning scriptwriter Siwan Jones. The series follows single mother, Alys, who moves away from Cardiff to a dingy flat in a small West Wales town along with her 10-year-old son, Daniel, while trying to escape her past.

Alys is portrayed by actress Sara Lloyd-Gregory, in a role which was specially written for her. The show is also her first leading role. Co-stars include William Thomas and Aneirin Hughes, whom Gregory had worked with on Con Passionate, another television drama series written by Siwan Jones. The Show is produced by Apollo for S4C. It began on Sunday 23 January 2011 as part of a new year line-up of brand-new television series on S4C.

The first season of Alys rated quite well for S4C, with the first episode attracting 61,000 viewers, while the season peaked at 71,000 viewers for episode three. Season Two seen a decline in ratings, with an extremely low rating of just 27,000 viewers for episode six, with a slight rise for subsequent episodes. 37,000 viewers tuned in for the final episode.

So far, two seasons of Alys have been produced and broadcast; with the first in early 2011, while the second season aired in late 2012. As of yet, a third season has not been commission, nor has there been any word as to whether or not the series has been officially cancelled.

The series has been nominated twice in 2012, first for a Celtic Media Award and then a BAFTA Cymru Award. In 2013, the series was nominated for three BAFTA Cymru Awards; winning two, including Sara Lloyd-Gregory receiving the award for Best Actress.

Alys was created and written by Siwan Jones, whose work as a writer earned her a BAFTA Cymru Award and a Rose d'Or for her critically acclaimed television series Tair Chwaer and Con Passionate.

The role of the main protagonist, Alys was written especially for actress Sara Lloyd-Gregory. She had met Jones in 2009 and had collaborated with her in the third and final season of Con Passionate, and was initially in mind to play the leading role in Jones' then-upcoming new drama series, Alys. Gregory admitted that, to her knowledge, she did not know that the leading role was written for her, which was a good thing, as she still had to audition and would have probably felt more pressure.