Hinterland Actor to Speak at Opening Day of Welsh Language ‘HWB’ at FOCUS Wales Festival

A popular Wrexham-based music and arts festival will welcome an award winning actor to speak at a new Welsh language event next month.

Hinterland actor Llion Williams will appear on the stage at HWB Cymraeg on Queen’s Square as part of the FOCUS Wales festival on Thursday May 11th.

From 6pm the Bangor-born actor will provide an insight into his role as an actor and Welsh language work.

Known for his TV roles in hit bilingual drama Hinterland/Y Gwyll and S4C comedy C’mon Midffild!, Llion was the first actor to win both English and Welsh-language performance prizes at the Wales Theatre Awards – taking the Welsh language best male actor for Chwalfa and English language best male performance award for his role in the bilingual play Belonging/Perthyn.

An associate at Theatr Clwyd in neighbouring Mold, he has also starred in a number of productions there – including Ghosts, Doll’s House, Abigail’s Party, Gaslight, Rape of the Fair Country and others.

Llion is just one of the many big names attending next month’s FOCUS Wales festival – Wrexham’s annual three-day celebration of music and culture.

Taking place between Thursday 11th May and Saturday 13th May, this year’s event sees the biggest contingent of music industry professionals to descend upon FOCUS Wales to date. Up to 100 delegates will be attending the festival from all corners of the world to offer their industry expertise and take advantage of the fantastic line-up of music and arts taking place across the three day festival.

Hwb Cymraeg, a new addition to the festival, will be based on a tipi on Queen’s Square throughout FOCUS Wales and will include Welsh language workshops, live radio sessions and talks from a number of artists

A number of bands and artists will take to the stage throughout the event, with Radio Cymru presenting and recording sessions and interviews with bands from the HWB on Friday, May 12th.

HWB Cymraeg is organised by Wrexham Council, FOCUS Wales, Coleg Cambria and Menter Iaith Fflint a Wrecsam.

Stephen Jones, Welsh Language Co-ordinator for Wrexham Council, said: “I’m very pleased we were able to get an actor of Llion’s stature to help us launch HWB Cymraeg.

“His credentials as an actor – in both Welsh and English – are fantastic and his appearance will be very much in the spirit of what we want to do at HWB Cymraeg; especially in attracting those viewers who may have come across Llion in Hinterland/Y Gwyll and want to find out more about his work.

“The aim of the event is also to attract those interested in the Welsh language and to promote the language, and Llion’s appearance will certainly help in this.”