Why His Dark Materials and Doctor Who used Welsh Government HQ
- Published
Cathays Park 2 as it appeared in His Dark Materials, which features a corrupt and controlling body known as the Magisterium
Television productions have been attracted to film inside the Welsh Government's headquarters because the "impressive architecture can easily double for London".
Six productions have been filmed inside the headquarters in Cathays Park, Cardiff since 2012, according to a freedom of information publication.
Fictional works filmed included Doctor Who, Casualty and His Dark Materials.
More than 2,600 civil servants work at the complex.
But after they have left for home, parts of the buildings - which date from the 1930s - have been turned over to production crews.
Construction of Cathays Park 2 commenced in 1975 and concluded in 1980.
Filming in the corridors of power
The Welsh Government started keeping records in 2012 and a freedom of information request revealed:
Casualty was the first drama filmed inside Cathays Park. Some of the cast of the fictional town of Holby filmed there for a day in December 2012, a year after production moved from Bristol to Cardiff Bay.
The production team of Aberfan: The Fight for Justice - in which Huw Edwards traces the story of Aberfan's decades-long battle for justice - spent a day in the building in July 2016.
Requiem producers used Cathays Park for one day's filming
Requiem, a six-part drama encompassing elements of both the supernatural and thriller genres, was filmed there for one day in April 2017. The series follows a woman investigating the historic disappearance of a girl from a small Welsh village.
The team behind the BBC's adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials spent a total of six days filming inside Cathays Park - three days in June 2018 and three days in September 2018.
The Doctor Who team spent a day filming in July 2018 for Jodie Whittaker's first series of travel adventures.
An adaptation of The War of the Worlds set in the present day, produced by Urban Myth Films for Fox, was filmed over six days in February 2019.
The Cathays Park 1 office is Grade II listed and was built between 1934 and 1938
How much does the Welsh Government get back?
Another reason for the choice of government buildings is the cost.
Each production was charged a £1 fee by the Welsh Government for a licence to film on its premises, except His Dark Materials which filmed in two stints and therefore paid for two licences.
Any other costs incurred by the Welsh Government in supporting the filming activity - for example additional security and maintenance services - were also directly recovered. This amounted to £26,271.
The Welsh Government said legal conditions and restrictive covenants on the offices meant they could not be used for the purpose of making a profit.
"On this basis, the Welsh Government only seeks to recover costs incurred as part of the filming licence agreement."
Ruth Wilson outside Cathays Park in His Dark Materials
Only one filming request has been declined since 2012.
In September last year, a request for an extra day's filming for His Dark Materials was rejected because it was too short notice and there was no way of organising the filming "from a security and health and safety perspective".
With 2,611 Welsh Government staff over the two buildings, filming is only done outside working hours so business is uninterrupted.
The old Welsh Office building in Cathays Park dates from the mid 1930s and is a Grade II-listed building. It is joined by a bridge to the newer building, which was constructed in 1979.
The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales described the second building, two decades before devolution, as "a symbol of closed inaccessible government.... bureaucracy under siege".
John Davies, however, described Cathays Park as a "splendid headquarters" in his History of Wales.
It will also now have a small footnote in the history of TV drama.
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