‘You only work for six months of the year because TV tends to go quiet in the winter’
TV series like Sex Education, His Dark Materials, and Doctor Who win global audiences and help promote Wales’ creativity on the world stage. Laura Clements asks scenic artist Rhiannon Clarke about her work in helping to bring them to our screens, but why lockdown has prompted a change of direction...
WHEN you see the slick sets and stunning scenery on shows like Sex Education it’s not hard to see why Netflix and Hollywood are heading to Wales for filming.
With Doctor Who filmed in the capital city, and the stars of His Dark Materials appearing in the windswept Brecon Beacons, it’s tempting for fans to try to spot the places they might recognise in their favourite shows.
Even Hollywood has put in an appearance in Wales, with Mark Wahlberg’s Infinite closing off parts of Cardiff last year and some scenes for the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 film shot in Snowdonia.
But for Rhiannon Clarke, who has worked for most of the big-hitters on the TV screens, life in the spotlight is far from the glamour that people imagine.
And she has more reason than most to scrutinise the background behind the actors. Because often Rhiannon, from Pontardawe, is the person who painted the scenes with nothing more fancy than standard paint and MDF.
The 31-year-old lives at Brynglas Farm with her parents and during lockdown has embraced a new life as a gardener. But as the scenic artist for Sex Education, His Dark Materials, and other productions including Doctor Who, Will, and Britannia, she gets to watch literally from behind the scenes.
“We basically paint MDF and plyboard to make it look old and make it look ugly,” laughs Rhiannon.
“It always makes me laugh because people say it must be such an amazing job. Yes, it can be amazing and you get a real buzz when you see your work on the TV and it looks really beautiful.
“But there are times where we might have spent a week doing stuff and it’s in the background, behind an actor and really blurry, so it can be a little bit disappointing. It’s a really funny juxtaposition.”
There was one time when her work took centre stage, when she was tasked with painting the bricks around a giant rugby ball made to look as though it was bursting out of Cardiff Castle during the Rugby World Cup.
Her job was to meticulously paint bits of wood to match the 100-yearold original bricks as closely as possible.
“It’s nowhere near as glamorous as people think,” Rhiannon adds. Peak glamour is heading to the wrap parties after filming has finished, but Rhiannon can only ever remember going to one: His Dark Materials.
“Even that is a faded memory. What sticks out the most from working on the popular BBC set was painting in the rain.
“We pretty much spent all day covered in paint because the stuff is outside in all weather,” she reminisces.
“Painting in the rain is just hilarious, actually.”
In fact there are hardly any parties or chances to rub shoulders with the stars. You will more likely find Rhiannon driving down the M4 in her car to the next job or squeezed into a workshop painstakingly painting lumps of foam to look like loaves of bread, or bits of wood to look like old stakes.
For Sex Education, which had just started filming series three before it was halted during lockdown, she commuted between Pontardawe and Newport every day. It’s a lifestyle that has taken its toll.
There’s a good living to be made as a scenic artist in TV, she admits, but less so in the world of theatre. She has done both.
“You only work for six months of the year because TV tends to go quiet in the winter and you work very long hours and you’re expected to work a lot of weekends,” she says.
“So 10- or 11-hour days become the norm and for me, really, longterm that’s not sustainable. It makes me really sad because I love the TV industry but it’s not sustainable in terms of having a life. I know a lot of people in the industry who have had relationships and family fall apart because of it.”
By far her favourite job has been working on the set for Sex Education. It helps that she is a massive fan of the show anyway.
“I’d want my teenagers to watch it because it normalises so many things that are taboo,” she says. “It talks about all these really big things that are missed in a lot of teenagers’ lives. I think it’s really powerful stuff.
“It’s the most fun I’ve had working on a show. The arts department is just amazing and it was such a tiny team for such a big Netflix show. Just before lockdown we had filmed series three. I’ve no idea if it’s been pushed back now.
“It was just me, another scenic artist, a painter, a decorator, and a carpenter. That was it. Then we had a lovely art department of about 20 people who would do the graphics and a separate costume department too.
“The art department would pop in and have a chat. For me that’s what it ought to be like in the industry – hanging out, having fun. And all the actors were lovely too.”
Rhiannon will spend hours designing and creating the set, then wait for filming to finish before coming back in and dismantling the whole thing.
With Sex Education, which is filmed on the Caerleon campus in Newport, she had to transform the university buildings into a college campus.
“It was quite funny on Sex Education because our workshop was in the old gym. We had built a set where we had converted the corridor into a school corridor and we were still working in the gym at the end while they filmed outside. The actors just popped their heads in the door, wondering where the rest of the corridor went. There was all of us in there building sets and they just said hello.”
Mostly, though, Rhiannon won’t see any of the actors or have any interaction with them unless she is given the dreaded job of “standby painter”.
It’s dreaded because it quite literally involves standing just out of shot with a paintbrush ready to touch up the set as and when required.
She did it for Britannia, a historical fantasy drama series that was the first-ever co-production between Sky and Amazon Prime Video.
“I was the standby painter for Britannia and it was pretty much standing there with a paintbrush for 10 hours a day,” she said.
“It was very, very boring standing around waiting while you hear the same people say the same lines 20 times. Then they spot something you needed to paint 10 minutes ago and you sit there waiting for it to dry while it’s pouring with rain. It’s really, really stressful and then really, really boring.”
Even so, Rhiannon always knew she wanted to work on film sets ever since she was a child.
“It all started out because I’m a bit of a film buff and I love movies, specifically sci-fi,” she said. “I’m a big Lord of The Rings fan and I spent a lot of time watching all the extra bits, like all the behind-the-scenes stuff, when I was younger.
“Watching those I realised people actually do this for a job. I remember thinking, ‘How is that even possible?’ So I researched it and found I could do a degree in theatre design.”
After three years at Nottingham Trent University Rhiannon graduated and entered a world where work opportunities were few and far between. Quickly realising she found theatre directors hard to work with and preferred using her hands, she discovered the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama did a Master’s course in painting for the stage.
“It was brilliant and gave me an awful lot of contacts,” she explains. “I did some work experience on Doctor Who and it all spiralled from there. It’s quite a small world in the Wales TV and film industry.
“Everything came [by] word of mouth really. When I started there weren’t that many of us but now there are quite a few. The TV industry in Wales has really gone bonkers, especially since the studios have opened.”
She means the likes of Bad Wolf Studios, where His Dark Materials and A Discovery of Witches were filmed. But as the country entered lockdown and all filming ceased it forced Rhiannon to take a step back and reconsider her options.
Fed up with long hours and chasing work constantly, she has set up her own business called Blue Hill Flora at Brynglas Farm, where she grows flowers for wholesale and weddings. The enforced pause was almost a blessing in disguise.
“My scenic work dried up,” she explains. “I had nothing else and flowers was the only income I had, so it freed me up to throw all my energy into that and it’s paid massive dividends.
“I’m not going to chase the scenic work anymore because one thing about being a scenic artist is I’m constantly looking for work and contacting people. It’s tough and it’s a tough industry to be in.
“With the flowers I feel like this is my calling. I love painting and I still do quite a lot of mural work but it’s something I very much do on the side.
“I’ve always been into gardening and loved nature and being outside. As I’ve got older I’ve become more aware about our climate and how precarious it is. I’ve become more worried about it and I’ve even gone vegetarian.
“Now I’m giving back to the earth rather than taking from it.”
You can see more of Rhiannon’s work on her website at www.rhiannon-clarke-design. com or at www.bluehillflora. com