Gwlad y Gan

Gwlad y Gan (English: Land of Song) was a monthly television series that ran from 1958 to 1964 featuring traditional Welsh music and song. The programme aired on Sunday evenings with costumed performers and choreography.

The series, starring Welsh baritone Ivor Emmanuel and supporting cast, expressed a set of ‘feel-good’ values that were wholesome, folksy, rustic, fun-loving and family-oriented. With a solid foundation of musical excellence and a respect for a Welsh musical tradition that held significance for an entire generation, the show caught a mood and struck a chord as it aimed to celebrate Wales within Wales and beyond. Broadcast in Welsh (but with bilingual captions on screen and bilingual voiced-over links), Land of Song was made in Cardiff by Television Wales and the West (TWW) and then distributed or ‘networked’ to ITV stations serving many parts of the country, thus reaching a nationwide audience which, in the early 1960s, peaked at around ten million viewers.

Independent television had been on air in the UK for less than three years when the new TWW company won the franchise to broadcast to Wales and the West of England, beginning its transmissions on 14 January 1958. TWW formed a commitment to broadcasting some programmes in Welsh, and another of its main aims was to provide popular entertainment that could compete with anything produced by the BBC. Gwlad y Gan / Land of Song was conceived to meet both objectives.

When Land of Song began in 1958, its only direct rival in providing musical variety on TV was the BBC’s The Black and White Minstrel Show. The Mitchell Minstrels had gained instant popularity from their first appearance in a one-off special in 1957, going on to become perennial favourites well into the 1970s. But unlike the BBC programme, TWW’s Land of Song ignored the Broadway–West End canon of ‘songs from the shows’ and sought instead to specifically showcase the traditional music of its region of origin. It drew on folk tunes, traditional songs, ballads, and Welsh hymns, performed by a children’s choir and an adult chorus, together with a select group of soloists. So well did this formula work that, by the early 1960s, many of them had become household names and faces.

Welsh baritone Ivor Emmanuel (1927–2007) was "one of Britain's most popular singing stars of the 1950s and 1960s" and is widely remembered for his role leading the ‘Men of Harlech’ battle hymn on the barricades in the 1964 film Zulu. Born in Margam but raised in Pontrhydyfen near Port Talbot, he began his singing career in the theatres of South Wales in the late 40s. In 1950 he won a part in the musical Oklahoma! in London’s West End, and also joined the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company chorus, appearing in a number of Savoy productions. Through the 1950s he added to his success on the West End stage with appearances in South Pacific (1951–53) at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, The King and I and Plain and Fancy (1956), also at Drury Lane, and Damn Yankees (1957) at the Coliseum. He came to the attention of ITV producer Chris Mercer and musical director Norman Whitehead and, after a successful appearance in the Welsh language musical TV programme Dewch i Mewn, he was cast as the singing lead of Gwlad Y Gan / Land of Song.

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