A two-part documentary exploring a major drugs bust at a Pembrokeshire seaside town will have an exclusive English language premier in the old Bethlehem Chapel in Newport this week.

Canolfan Bethlehem will host a one-off pre-broadcast screening of new documentary ‘Cannabis Cove: Operation Seal Bay’ this week.

The showing will take place on Thursday, November 20 starting 6.30pm, followed by a Q&A with the detectives on the case Don Evans and John Daniels, as well as the documentary’s director James Hale.

The film is called Cannabis Cove based on Operation Seal Bay that took place in 1983 when the peace of a quiet Welsh coastal community was shattered by one of the most extraordinary police investigations in the country’s history. During 1983 the small town found itself at the centre of an international smuggling ring.

The police and authorities discovered a hidden hatch on the beach and beneath it lay a man-made underground room, stocked with food, radio equipment and fibre-glass resin. Within days, arrests followed.

Three men - Robin Boswell, Ken Dewar, and Sam Spanggaard, an escaped drug trafficker, were taken into custody.

Now, more than forty years on, a new two-part S4C documentary returns to the mystery with interviews and re-enactments.

The new documentary reveals how officers found Cannabis Cove and while the first part of the documentary explores the discovery of the underground chamber and the arrests that followed, the second part expands the investigation’s reach far beyond west Wales.

The exclusive English language premier of ‘Cannabis Cove: Operation Seal Bay’ will air in the very community where the mystery unfolded at the recently community purchased Canolfan Bethlehem which has developed an excellent community venue at the location of the old Baptist chapel called Bethlehem, in the heart of the community in Newport.

The pre-broadcast English language screening of Cannabis Cove will take place at Canolfan Bethlehem, Upper West Street, Newport. SA42 0TQ.

The event is not ticketed, but donations will be taken on the door to help support Canolfan Bethlehem community heritage, art and cultural centre.