New Voices from Wales

Nineteen-year-old Liam Roche has dwarfism, so does his dad Patrick. When Patrick was Liam’s age, he was an up-and-coming drummer who went on to tour the world. Now in his late fifties and suffering from severe arthritis, Pat hasn’t drummed for ten years. Can Liam surprise his dad by getting his old band together without him knowing and give Pat ‘One Last Gig’?

Shirley Walker has been cutting hair for almost 70 years in the once vibrant mining community of Cefn Forest and knows generations of families in the area. The treasured photographs on the shop wall are like chapters in the village history. They show a time when the village life was dominated by groups of men getting together from sports teams to brass band to homing pigeons. How things have changed.

Alexandria Riley is a successful actress on stage and screen from Newport. Most recently she has appeared in the TV shows In My Skin and The Tuckers (now commissioned for a series). But there is something niggling. Something unsettling. Something she comes face to face with every time someone asks her – 'Yes, but where are you really from?' It’s about the colour of her skin. It’s about being mixed race. And it’s about how that squares with being Welsh.

Hostel Sweet Hostel tells the stories of young people living in supported housing in Holyhead. The residents have experienced, or are at risk of, becoming homeless.