Iconic local film images brighten up the gloom
TWENTY-FIVE years after its release, Twin Town is part of the cultural landscape of Swansea and Port Talbot as the film is crammed with locations from around the area.
Now a series of murals have been added to a formerly gloomy subway with the help of a Welsh graffiti artist, and fans of the film will agree they’re a pretty good representation of some of the film’s iconic scenes.
Steve Jenkins, known as Jenks Art, was brought in after Plaid Cymru Aberavon election candidate Nigel Hunt got in touch about a project to brighten up the subways around Port Talbot. The project was commissioned to reflect the communities around Port Talbot and Jenksart’s Twin Town murals can be seen at the Dalton Road and hospital roundabout subways.
Steve first came to the attention of graffiti art lovers and the wider community when he started doing murals in tribute to NHS workers during the pandemic.
The Twin Town murals feature key scenes from the 1997 Kevin Allen hit which stars Rhys Ifans, Llyr Ifans and Port Talbot’s Di Botcher. Di is featured in one of the murals in one of her most famous parts of the film when she warns the Lewis twins (played by the Ifans brothers) to ‘ave a bath, feed Cantona,’ and well, you know the rest.
Other scenes Jenks has re-created feature Keith Allen as the hot dogloving farmer and the twins in a stolen AC Cobra.
He explained how it came about: “I went to have a look at a possible subway with Nigel and got chatting to him about the theme that he would like. The stipulation was it needed to have something to do with the area and be relevant to the people that would use the facility.
“Whilst we were chatting Di Botcher’s name was mentioned as a local celebrity who does not receive the same level of recognition as others from the area. Her involvement with Stella, Casualty and Twin Town was mentioned. As soon as Nigel spoke about Twin Town, my eyes lit up! It’s one of my favourite films and re-creating images from the film in the subway would inject a bit of humour into the art, too.”
Jenks duly did his research, rewatching the film, and decided which scenes he wanted to re-create. “I watched it a few times and took still photos of the scenes I wanted to capture, which turned out to be too many to fit in.” But he narrowed his choice down and started by painting the portrait of Di.
“Seven long days later it was completed,” he said. “I have had a great time painting it and had chats with a lot of local people. One lady was thrilled that it was being painted as I was covering up bullying graffiti.
“Others mentioned smiling every time they would now pass through on their way to the hospital.
“A lot of people love the film and commented on different scenes as they were going up. So I’m landed with the response it’s had, so thank you Port Talbot and Nigel for arranging, we need more councils to follow this idea.
“It’s great to see educational, meaningful murals going up as they really communicate with people of all ages.”
Also standing for election in the Aberavon ward are Ieuan Thomas Bounds (Welsh Conservative), Andrew Dacey (Plaid Cymru), Ceri Paul Golding (Independent), Stephanie Lynch (Welsh Labour) and Dean Thomas (Welsh Labour).