In recent years, North Wales has played host to a number of high profile Hollywood productions, such as Clash Of The Titans, Tarzan, and Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur. Yet, the history of cinema in North Wales, in fact, goes back to the start of the twentieth century, and over one hundred film and television productions have made use of the area as a shooting location.

The way in which North Wales, especially with regards to culture and landscape, has been represented on screen has been enormously varied. This has included being used as an “actor” to represent other parts of the world, for example India in Carry On Up The Khyber, and China in The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness; being used as a setting for fantasy films and dramas, such as Willow and Doctor Who, many of which draw from the region’s mythological heritage; as well as being used to represent itself.

This paper will explore the latter of these aspects, examining three major ways in which North Wales, as itself, has been used as a location- As a picturesque and romantic landscape, with narratives which often hark back to earlier periods, in films such as Hedd Wynn; As a destination for tourists in features such as Our Day Out and Holiday On The Buses; and lastly as a working, industrial landscape, with films such as Men Against Death and One Hour To Zero reflecting the way in which industrial activity has altered and declined throughout the twentieth century.