'Tree on a Hill/Pren ar y Bryn' Is a Thriller in Any Language

Everyone wants to believe they’d know how to carry out the perfect coverup, especially in today’s true-crime-obsessed world. Welsh noir drama Tree on a Hill/Pren ar y Bryn paints an absurd yet much more realistic picture of what happens when a mediocre couple gets in over their heads. A creepy yet strangely comforting tale, Tree on a Hill (not to be confused with American drama One Tree Hill) hails from the twisted (highest of compliments!) mind of Ed Thomas, co-creator of another popular Welsh-English drama, 2013’s Hinterland.

It’s set in the Welsh town of Penwyllt, where time seems to have crawled to a standstill, and every resident is perpetually on edge. Enter Margaret (Nia Roberts) and Clive (Rhodri Melir), a middle-aged couple stuck in the patterns of daily life until Margaret accidentally murders her sister Sylvia’s (Hannah Daniel) husband. Cue a mad scramble to cover up the murder while the rest of the town embarks on a slow-moving whodunit.

Tree on a Hill/Pren ar y Bryn is a dual-language drama shot in English and Welsh, the first to make it to BritBox. It’s not a mix of English and Welsh with subtitles, but rather two versions of the same show, with the same script and edit, shot twice so each language can stand on its own. Writer Ed Thomas noted that because no characters speak Welsh in the English-language version, “it exists in a world where the Welsh language has been forgotten; it’s a memory.” The subtle uncanniness this adds to the series may be lost on most American viewers.