The romance is airy and distant, because the lovers never meet until the final scene, and the comedy is kind of wistful, because it was directed by Nora Ephron.

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But the two television series that really secured Portmeirion's place in the popular British imagination were 1960s sci-fi drama The Prisoner (with the village making an eerily jovial setting for the Kafkaesque story), and the more recent Cold Feet, the romantic comedy series whose final episode in 2003 turned Portmeirion into a popular wedding venue overnight.

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My short walk home passes a small, rather dingy square, the graffiti-covered Piazza San Apollonia, where a disused butcher's shop, an ironmongers and a tiny comedy theatre are all that remain of the final act in this famous love affair.

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