Where is BBC drama The Way set? Wales filming locations for Michael Sheen’s new miniseries

The A-lister’s home town sets the scene for the three-part industrial drama

The three-part drama aired on the BBC on Monday (BBC/Red Seam/Jon Pountney)

The BBC’s new drama The Way sees Michael Sheen’s anticipated directing debut tell the story of “an ordinary family caught up in an extraordinary chain of events that ripple out from their hometown”.

Three one-hour-long episodes, ‘The War’, ‘The Walk’ and ‘The Wait’, follow the fugitive Driscoll family who spark a manhunt after being forced to flee Wales when a civil uprising breaks out at the local steelworks.

The politically-minded drama features an all-star cast of Welsh actors including Gavin and Stacey’s Steffan Rhodri, The Hobbit’s Luke Evans and Sheen himself.

The dynamic landscapes of south Wales backdrop ‘The Way’ (BBC/Red Seam/Jon Pountney)

With beaches, rolling hillsides and industrial steelworks taking centre stage, here is the Welsh destination behind the BBC’s new dystopian miniseries.

Where is The Way set?

Port Talbot

Actress Sophie Melville said the series “feels like what it is to be Welsh” (BBC/Red Seam/Jon Pountney)

The Way is both set and filmed in the Welsh steelworks town of Port Talbot, just south of Swansea.

It’s close to home for series actor and director Michael Sheen, as Port Talbot is the Welsh star’s hometown, and efforts were made to support and incorporate the local community throughout filming.

His co-star Sophie Melville, who plays police officer Thea Driscoll, told The Independent: “In this, there are the gorgeous hills and the beaches, and then there’s the dirty, ugly, infrastructure of the steelworks. It just feels like what it is to be Welsh.”

Strikes at Port Talbot Steelworks spark a revolution in episode one (BBC/Red Seam/Jon Pountney)

The mass civil uprising seen on screen is very topical. Just last month it was announced that steel giant Tata was to press ahead with plans to close blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot, putting up to 2,800 jobs at risk.

Elsewhere, settings in Abergavenny and Shire Hall in Monmouth welcomed the cameras. The areas form a backdrop to the Driscoll family’s escape from a Welsh lockdown to an “uneasy sanctuary” in Reading and a refugee camp.

The Driscolls flee Wales for uneasy sanctuary in ‘Reading’ and a refugee camp (BBC/Red Seam)

Sheen told Neath Port Talbot Council in a behind-the-scenes video: “It’s been incredible to tell this story here in a place that I grew up in, that I know so well.

“One of the brilliant things about this area is that there’s such an amazing range of landscapes and places to film in. We’ve been able to tell a story that takes place across the whole of the United Kingdom but to shoot it all here.”

All three episodes of The Way are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.