Hughesovska ( modern day Donetsk ) exists alright. Here is the text of a press release about an Y Lolfa title called "Hughesovska and the New Russia'.

Written by Colin Thomas, the book/media package features a DVD documentary shot on location by my old history professor Gwyn Alf Williams ( see next post because of character limits ) :-

Thursday 26 November sees the Cardiff launch of Y Lolfas first book-DVD package, at Womanby Streets bar, Y Fuwch Goch. Multi-prize-winning TV documentary film maker Colin Thomas awards include three from BAFTA Cymru, as well as the Prix Europa, the Gold Award at Houston International Film Festival, and the Jury Award at the Celtic Film and TV Festival. Now for the first time, his documentary Hughesovka and the New Russia, presented by Professor Gwyn Alf Williams, is available to keep. First transmitted in English to the UK network on BBC2 in 1991, the three-part series won BAFTA Cymrus inaugural Best Documentary Award of that year. The DVD is published together with Colin Thomas first book, Dreaming a City: From Wales to Ukraine , which brings the story of Hughesovka, the town established by Welsh people in Ukraine, up to the present day.

Colin Thomas and Gwyn Alf Williams had a long and productive working relationship respectively as film producer and presenter, mainly on popular Welsh history programmes such as The Dragon has Two Tongues, made by the co-operative company Teliesyn. But they also formed a strong friendship, and this honest account of the bonds and occasional blow-ups of this creative relationship in television from 1981 to the Professors death in 1995, make Dreaming a City a fitting tribute to a fine historian and well-loved figure.

Author Colin Thomas said,

" I have always thought that what happened to the city founded by John Hughes and his Welsh workers told a much bigger story. But I have been surprised to discover, in writing a book about a place that has fascinated me for years, the degree of personal revelation involved. I have found myself exploring my own hopes for a better world. For many years I shared some of those dreams with the late great Prof Gwyn Williams and I'm delighted that this book/DVD package will form a tribute to Professor Williams, as well as bringing the Hughesovka story bang up to date ."

Both DVD and book tell the remarkable tale of a city created in the 1870s by Welsh capitalist John Hughes and his team of seventy Welsh miners and steelworkers. Its transition from Hughesovka in Russia, to Stalino in the Soviet Union, and then to Donetsk in the newly-independent Ukrainian nation, is a story of Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union in microcosm. Dreaming a City traces the towns growth from patriarchal beginnings through the Russian revolutions, Bolshevism, Stalinism, Nazi occupation and the collapse of Communism, Nineties rising Ukraine nationalism, to Ukraine post-independence in the present market economy. Partly a revisiting of the making of the television series Hughesovka and the New Russia, this book is Russian and Welsh social and political history; travel journalism, and a tribute to Welsh historian Gwyn Alf Williams, as well as being a personal memoir of a life in TV and history. Above all, though, it explores the tensions between a belief in social change and the danger implicit in utopian visions.

Extracts fromHughesovka and the New Russia will be shown at the launch, which commences at 7.30pm at Y Fuwch Goch/The Red Cow, Womanby St, Cardiff. The book/DVD package is available at good bookshops and from amazon, gwales and www.ylolfa.com .

And, to my surprise, after reading that book I discovered that Hughesovka really exists! That's what I mean about reality being tangled up with fiction!

There are at least 4 books in the series, including one where Louie and Calamity go to Hughesovska.

I went searching to see if I could find more and I found an article on a dramatization of "Last Tango in Aberystwyt" which was planned, does anyone know anything about this and whether or not it was actually done?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/midwales/hi/tv_and_radio/newsid_8700000/8700649.stm

I LOVE Malcolm Pryce and this was a wonderful treat to listen to, anyone know if there are more?

Diolch for the link Helen.....listening now

I really enjoyed that (particularly liked "Madame X" on the stage!); Louie Knight's office is suitably Sam Spade-ish. I'ma real fan of the Aberystwyth novels.

Thanks for the link Helen.

I love the Aberystwyth series. It is both a complete fantasy and yet, somehow, strangely plausible. I always wonder how people who don't know the town manage to disentangle the truth from the fiction.

In case any one is interested, the BBC radio have just broadcast a dramatisation of a Malcolm Pryce Aberystwyth story and it should be available to people outside the UK. You have 5 days left to listen and I thought it was very well done and captured the essence of the books perfectly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sdmjr