The Collection: Paris rebuilt on Fabian Way

Swansea has a habit of standing in for places far from home, and one of its more ambitious transformations was the Parisian streets built for The Collection. The eight-part drama, written and created by Oliver Goldstick, follows the House of Sabine, a Parisian fashion house emerging from the dark days of the Nazi Occupation into a golden age of design and business in the years just after the Second World War. It is a French-British production, co-commissioned and distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide and produced by Lookout Point for Amazon Instant Video, with UK rights on Amazon Prime, alongside Amazon Studios, Federation Entertainment and France Télévisions.

At the centre are two brothers who could not be more different. Richard Coyle plays Paul Sabine, the charming, outgoing one with the business savvy, while Tom Riley takes on Claude Sabine, the artistic talent, an introverted and misanthropic spirit who hid his homosexuality during the Occupation. The story peels back the glamour of the fashion house to expose family rivalries, betrayals and ugly secrets. The supporting cast is equally strong: Mamie Gummer as Paul's American wife Helen, from a wealthy family; Frances de la Tour as Yvette; Jenna Thiam as Nina; Max Deacon as Billy Novak; Alix Poisson as Charlotte; Alexandre Brasseur as Victor; Irène Jacob as Marianne; Poppy Corby-Tuech as Dominique; Bethan Mary James as Juliette; Sarah Parish as Marjorie Stutter; James Cosmo as Jules Trouvier; Michael Kitchen as Lemaire; Allan Corduner as Bompard; Stanley Townsend as Stanley Rossi; Michelle Gomez as Eliette; and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Cesar.

The Swansea connection is the part that surprises the most. The series was filmed across Wales, France and Pinewood Studios in the first half of 2016, with filming running from 25 January to May. A good chunk of that took place at Bay Studios, the former Ford site on Fabian Way, near Swansea, in Neath Port Talbot, with Atlantic College in Llantwit Major also standing in for France. Production designer Alison Dominitz and her team built the set in just two months to recreate the streets of Paris, because filming in the city itself would have cost millions of euros. It is the kind of detail that changes how you look at a familiar stretch of road.

Beyond the fashion, the show carries a darker thread, capturing the uneasiness and paranoia of the early Cold War and the hunt for former Nazi collaborators. The episodes, titled The Deal, The Dress, The Scent, The Launch, The Afterglow, The Weekend, The Betrayal and The Offer, run between 52 and 60 minutes each and were directed by Dearbhla Walsh and Dan Zeff. It first landed on Amazon in the UK on 2 September 2016, before rolling out across Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, the US, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Russia, and eventually onto PBS Masterpiece in the US in October 2017. A DVD followed in the UK on 20 March 2017. For anyone who has ever wondered what a former Ford site on Fabian Way can be turned into with enough paint and a bit of imagination, this is the one to track down.