Famous people of North Wales

Turner trained at RADA, graduating in 1991, before building a long career across British television and theatre.

Saynor made his breakthrough playing Morgan opposite Katharine Hepburn in the 1979 television film 'The Corn Is Green', based on Emlyn Williams' play, and the same year appeared as Merak in the Doctor Who serial 'The Armageddon Factor'. He went on to a long career working for BBC Wales, BBC South and S4C, appearing in numerous stage productions mostly based in Cardiff and London, and most recently played the father of the lead detective in the 2018 bilingual drama 'Hidden'.

Penillion singing — improvised counter-melody sung over a harp accompaniment — is one of the oldest and most distinctively Welsh vocal traditions, so a documented early recording of it would be historically significant. Unfortunately no external discography, archive catalogue or press cutting was located during research to verify the 1902 recording date or the recording count attributed to Dew, so this detail should be treated with appropriate caution pending further primary-source research.

Pryce took his stage name from a near-clash with an actor already registered with the actors' union Equity, dropping the birth surname Price for the similar-sounding Pryce. Despite his international career, his voice has retained a distinct Welsh lilt, and he has often spoken of the influence of his Flintshire upbringing on his work.

Buckland has never lost his North Wales roots: his parents remained in the area, his father a former teacher at Holywell High School, and in 2012 Buckland donated a gold Coldplay disc to fund the restoration of Pantymwyn's village hall. He is a keen Tottenham Hotspur supporter and, alongside his songwriting and guitar work, has contributed lead vocals to the Coldplay track \"Don't Panic\" and written songs including \"Adventure of a Lifetime\".

Evans rose to prominence through the Edinburgh Festival and the Comedy Store circuit, winning the Perrier Award (now the Edinburgh Comedy Award) in 1993 — one of comedy's most coveted prizes. His film career followed swiftly: Funny Bones (1995) with Jerry Lewis won him the Paris Film Festival Award for Best Actor, then The Fifth Element (1997), Mouse Hunt (1997), There's Something About Mary (1998), The Ladies Man (2000) and The Medallion (2003) with Jackie Chan. He appeared in Doctor Who's 2009 Easter Special Planet of the Dead as Malcolm Taylor — a Welsh scientist. Entirely appropriate.

But it was live stand-up where he truly lived. His Big tour in 2008 played 59 dates to over 500,000 people, and the DVD filmed at the O2 Arena became the best-selling Christmas DVD in the UK that year, shifting over a million copies. His 2011 Roadrunner tour grossed £12.9 million. The 2014 Monsters tour DVD surpassed even Big at Christmas. In November 2014 he announced his retirement from stand-up on The Jonathan Ross Show, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. He was 50.

He came briefly out of retirement in 2017 for a Shakespeare and Pinter fundraiser with Jack Whitehall, and announced a return to the stage in 2025 with a new arena tour including a date at Utilita Arena Cardiff — a homecoming of sorts, to the nation that shaped his father and, through him, him. His father Dave Evans died in June 2019 after a long illness. Lee Evans was born with a hole in his heart. He has never, as far as anyone can tell, stopped moving.

Lemmy would salute Welsh crowds with "Cymru am Byth" and, in 2005, addressed the National Assembly for Wales on drug policy reform — small but real echoes of his Anglesey years, decades after he left the island for London and, eventually, Los Angeles.