David Lyn

David Lyn Jenkins (30 April 1927 – 4 August 2012), known professionally as David Lyn, was a Welsh television, film and stage actor and director who in his 40-year career was at the forefront in the development of professional Welsh language theatre in Wales in the 1960s and 70s and won a BAFTA Cymru.

Early life David Lyn Jenkins was born on 30 April 1927 in Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf, one of three children and the only son of Violet Margaret née Evans (1904–1992) and David Jenkins (1896–), Theirs was an English-speaking family, although the children picked up the rudiments of the Welsh language. Lyn was raised on a smallholding in Cynwyl Elfed in Carmarthenshire, an area steeped in poverty, and his own early family life was one of struggle; after winning a place at the local grammar school he went on to attend the teacher-training course at Trinity College, Carmarthen. He later joined a weekend drama course where a tutor from the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) recognised his dramatic gifts and persuaded him to move to London to study. Lyn spent two years at the RAM and decided to take a career as an actor, making his début in experimental theatre clubs such as the Watergate Theatre, where the actors would on occasion improvise and where directors were not afraid to take risks.

Theatre in Wales Lyn took the step of leaving London to try his hand at acting in his native Wales. Throughout this period alongside his acting Lyn also developed a side-line in renovating houses and when he moved his family to North Wales he bought five derelict cottages and knocked them through into one long house, fitting a large church window in the front of the last cottage giving the building the appearance of an old chapel. In 1965 Lyn toured Ireland in a production of Pinter's The Caretaker with the Welsh Theatre Company. In 1966 he joined Cwmni Theatr Cymru, the Welsh-language wing of the Welsh Theatre Company, in the Absurdist Saer Doliau (Doll Mender or Doll Doctor), a play by the Welsh playwright Gwenlyn Parry. In 1972 Lyn purchased a 55 ft 50 ton Norwegian trawler, the Tolga, which he intended to renovate to fulfil a promise to his father to take him up the Zambezi. He and his family worked on making the trawler seaworthy. Lyn returned to acting in television, most notably playing Joseph Parry in Off to Philadelphia in the Morning (1978) for the BBC.

Later years Lyn produced plays for Theatr Powys and also produced and directed dramas for the stage and television, sometimes with Hannah and Tim Lyn, two of his five children.

Lyn's television company Penadur was doing well until Huw Jones, the new chief executive of S4C who had been appointed in 1994, had the idea to create large production companies, created from the amalgamation of smaller companies. Lyn was not in favour of this move, arguing that it would create a 'jobs for the boys' environment that would impact on truly Welsh programme making. He was concerned that S4C would produce bi-lingual carbon-copies of television programmes from other countries instead of producing original Welsh dramas. He was also concerned that, as in the 1970s, actors and television makers would come to work in Wales only for their own personal gain - at the expense of home-grown talent.

After the changes at S4C Penadur did not get any more work which resulted in the company folding in January 1999 and with whom he had a son, Adam. with whom he had four children: Sian, Timothy, Bronwen and Hannah Lyn.

Lyn later died at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff in August 2012 aged 85. His funeral service was held at St Ystyffan's church in Llansteffan in Carmarthenshire where he was buried in the churchyard with his late wife.

He lived to see the founding of Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, the Welsh language national theatre of Wales, founded in 2003, and its counterpart in National Theatre Wales, the English language national theatre company of Wales, founded in 2009. Together the two theatre companies provide a national platform for professional drama in Wales.

Television and film credits