Coals and Courtship

Knockabout comedy that grabs attention through its setting of the Pwyllgwaun colliery near Pontypridd.

Knockabout comedy that captures attention and interest through its setting of Pwyllgwaun colliery (spelt Pwllgwain in the film) near Pontypridd. The narrative may be nigh on incomprehensible and the comedy broad (rolling around in a puddle is the pinnacle of comic achievement), but the settings of the colliery, terraced houses and a fun fair, allied with the gawping onlookers, are never less than fascinating. An inadvertently valuable record of a vanished way of life.

Coals and Courtship was made by a short-lived Cardiff based production company called Mascot Star, who billed it - inaccurately - as Wales' first ever film comedy. The head of the company, Ernest Edmunds, appears as the registrar towards the end of the film.