Donna Edwards

Donna Edwards was born in 1963 in Merthyr Tydfil and raised in the nearby village of Trefechan. She attended Vaynor and Penderyn High School, where she developed an early interest in drama, and at 14 landed her first television role playing the lead, Myfanwy Llewellyn, in the 1978 BBC Wales drama Off to Philadelphia in the Morning. She went on to study Welsh and Drama at Aberystwyth University, graduating in 1984.

Edwards has built her career largely around Welsh-language and Wales-set television drama, playing Miriam Ambrose in Dinas from 1985, and starring in Tair Chwaer and Belonging, winning the BAFTA Cymru Best Actress award for both roles. She is perhaps best known to audiences for playing Britt Monk in the long-running S4C soap opera Pobol y Cwm.

She has also appeared in English-language Welsh productions including Nuts and Bolts for ITV Wales, and had roles in the BBC comedies Gavin & Stacey and the Sky sitcom Stella, in which she played 'Mo the Bap' across two series. Edwards has performed on stage at the Royal Court, Clwyd Theatr Cymru and the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, and is an ambassador for the learning disability charity Mencap Cymru. She lives in Dinas Powys, near Cardiff.