We're proud to be from the Valleys, and this is a loving tribute

Adam Llewellyn on the return of The Golden Cobra

Surreal animated comedy The Golden Cobra returns to BBC Three and iPlayer on Friday – and on BBC One Wales from October 2 - with 12 new episodes based around the titular curry house in Ebbw Vale. Here Adam Llewellyn, who directs the show and writes it with James Prygodzicz and Thomas Rees, speaks about how it’s put together…

How important is the Welsh setting to The Golden Cobra?

Myself, along with the co-creators and writers, are from the Valleys and all grew up in the 1990s, when Welsh representation on national television was really scarce. Until High Hopes [the sitcom which launched in 2002] came along, we really only had the consumer affairs programme The Ferret on HTV.

I can actually remember one Wednesday night when there was an investigation into someone getting ripped off at the Ebbw Vale Friday market for some dodgy towels they bought, and it was the talk of the town.

We are all immensely proud to be from the Valleys and the cartoon serves as nothing but a loving tribute. So many programmes and films made here [in the UK] use major English cities such as London or Manchester as their backdrop, which of course isn't a problem, but when you make something about the more unknown parts of the country, there's a nice sense that you're perhaps making something its residents enjoy on a more personal level and feel is theirs.

Where do you find inspiration?

It's a mix of things, really. Some of the episodes and plots are based on our own (highly exaggerated) experiences growing up in the Valleys, such as a new episode we have made about the teenagers going on a certain historical school trip.

Sometimes myself and the writers will be sat around completely stuck for ideas and someone will say, ‘What if they go to Aberdare?’ and someone else will say, as a joke, ‘Yeah, and it's full of cannibals,’ and it all just falls into place. We take full advantage of the fact we make a cartoon and strive to do stuff you (probably) couldn't do in live action.

Golden Cobra Series 2

What does the process of creating an animated comedy look lik? Which part do you enjoy most?

It all starts in a tiny little office we use as a writers' room in Cardiff, where myself, James and Tom sit for hour after hour trying to make each other laugh and come up with episode ideas.

Then, after this, myself and the animation team get to work. Each episode takes a few weeks to draw and then edit together, and we also tend to constantly change the script during this time and pump up the gags to make them as funny as possible, something you can't really do in live action.

As well as being the series director, I am also the lead animator. One of the things I enjoy most is getting a tricky scene, such as a car chase, and figuring out how it would play out in Ebbw Vale, and then recreating popular landmarks for it to happen in.

Another thing we have done this series is focus heavily on original music, composed by our super-talented friend Adam Harvey. After making some of our own original songs in series one, we leaned into that much more this series, and having these realised and then performed by Valleys musicians we know was very enjoyable.