Munster Express Online

The music is still pumping up the volume on the time-warping sequel to Life On Mars with another David Bowie song for a title Ashes To Ashes. Once again a cop gets shot in the present and pops back through time or else it’s all in the head. This time it’s a lot more sexed up with a female cop shot in 2008 turning up in 1981 at a riverboat party dressed in red you-know-what high heels and suspenders. Philip Glenister has time-shifted from the seventies to London but is still the macho, Hunt the cop with grunt. It probably got a bigger BBC1 budget which is spent on orange Fiestas and lots of thin ties and the Ultravox hit Vienna is mega. Apparently this eight-parter is going to have D. I. Drake (Keeley Hawes) go after the criminal who shot her in 2008, while back in 1981. Otherwise it’s just cops and crims with costumes and clever ideas.

Hot Hype

After the manufactured hype of the various selection processes in the run up to the American presidential election, where the same side – the Democrats, who want to oust the Republicans of the Bush type, it was chilling to view C4s Inside Hamas. It’s not a battle of well dressed Obama but the life and death reality of electing terrorists as happened to Hamas in Gaza. Hamas have gone from here, freedom fighters in opposition to authoritarian baton-wielding rulers. It was scary to see police from Hamas break up peaceful and prayerful gatherings and demonstrations of the people who elected them.

Moving Echo

It may have the top script writer who devised EastEnders and Eldorado but the glorious dual experiment of Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach on UTV seems like a good idea going out at the wrong time. Clever idea to have Wallpaper about the devising process of the writers who allegedly script Echo Beach and Ben Millar is great as the macho Jonathan Pope, who controls the output and it is wickedly funny and perhaps could stand on its own sandy feet but Echo Beach, even with soap stars Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon are lost in a 9.30 slot before News At Ten.

Still, in its slot it manages only less than 4 million viewers consistently and it’s in its eight week of a twelve week run. Despite massive publicity it didn’t make the Barb top 70 listing. Time to change the Wallpaper?

Bionic Sleep

It’s tough being a superstar on tv these days. Take EastEnders Slater Sister, Michelle Ryan, who was feted in the US as the new whiz on the block. She starred in Bionic Woman that had lots of pre-hype and TV3 launched it over here with a prime-time Wednesday slot. Ratings were poor, both here and in the US, so TV3 have moved it to a late late slot on Saturdays. Bionic sleep, despite the babe and the technology.

Bits And Bottom Feeders

CLIPS: C4 are collaborating with tv internet platform Brightcove to set up a clips channel that is a mix of promo material for future shows and a 25-year back history in one to three minute clips like you might see on YouTube. The future is shrinking to attention – holding clips and the top clips this month are Flashing The Flesh from How To Look Good Naked and a Shaneless clip called Mass Hysteria. If you are curious, try www.channel4.com/video or www.e4.com.

MUSICALS:

According to the Olivier awards manager, Michael Cregan, the popularity of tv shows like How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria, Any Dream Will Do and Grease Is The Word, has increased attendances in London theatres by ten percent to nearly 14 million seats sold in 2007. Hairspray got 11 Olivier nominations. Curiously none of the musicals, featured in tv shows, got a nomination.

DALE WINTON:

The perma-tanned host is to front the new pilot for BBC1, a hidden camera quiz show called ‘You’ve Got The Answer’. This is planned for a Saturday night slot when unsuspecting contestants will be given answers while being secretly filmed as they go about their ordinary lives in the week before the show. The twist is that they will not know that they are going to be on the show so they may not take or pay attention to the information. Answers will be on billboards, by irritating sales calls or by chatty cabbie or street meeting. Will it work? Obviously BBC1 think they have the answer.

DOUGH DOH!

Do not expect The Simpsons to include a send-up of Scientologists any day soon. They recently presented Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson) with their Patron Laureate Award after she donated 10 million dollars to the Church of Scientology last year. This gift was almost twice her annual salary.

REVIEW: TITANIC – THE MUSICAL

Ballinrobe Musical Society took my breath away last week with the spectacular production of TITANIC – The Musical, and this was the first time this 1997 show was produced in the Republic Of Ireland (A Belfast company had the Irish premiere some few years ago). My admiration for this production began in Co. Galway as I headed out of Headford and as I crossed over the Mayo border, the advertisements for the show began. As you drove into the one-way street system of Ballinrobe, a town about the size of Dungarvan, solid posters in the shape of a lifebelt, advised that embarkation on Titanic was ahead.

Arriving at the Community College, the long Reception entrance was lined with tea-chests, wicker trunks and a most impressive set of White Star Line Memorabilia. Tickets for the voyage were collected and you passed over a white gangplank bridge into a gymnasium/auditorium where across a sixty foot width of the space a multi-towered structure of a ship. This width is three times wider than the Theatre Royal and the set was a wow in itself. With gangways and steps, multi-purpose acting areas, a radio room on castors that was researched and sourced in Co. Cork to establish museum class authenticity. A crowsnest would later winch down from the roof and two functional life boats would be winched down the sidewalls to later contain about twenty singers in each boat.

Not a note had been sung and that five hundred strong audience knew they were in for a night to remember, a spectacle to experience as their emotions were dragged this way and that by an eighty-strong cast all costumed by Hombergs of Leeds.

The orchestra were front of stage with a sixty-foot wide promenade section before them as the cast filed through the auditorium to establish one of the most impressive opening sequences I have seen. There were the officers, the owner, the builder, the First class, the second class and the third class, all gathering for a voyage of legend with all their hopes and expectations – a ship of dreams. The lyrics rang of 40 tonnes of potatoes, 1,100 pounds of marmalade, 20,000 crystal drinking glasses.

In rapid order you were introduced to many cameo performers whom often had only a few lines to establish mood and message. Knowing what the outcome was going to be gave the songs an added poignancy and you hoped the glorious cabin boy in red might be saved. There were twenty children in this production who acted, mimed and sang with such resonance and ability.

By the time the iceberg struck you were caught up in a moving powerful show that just sucked you into the vortex of musical theatre in a way you will not experience in the West End, with minimum characters and small casts. A piano player introduces the Autumn theme that dominates later stages. Shall we all meet in the autumn… love newly found may yet last… won’t be past.

The excitement of the second act was so tangible and exciting and a big chorus song towards the end We’ll Meet Tomorrow. Let one brief moment make eternal ties… let this embracing replace forever… keep us together evermore. The scenes of panic to get into the too few lifeboats were excellently done and a triumph of choreography for Peter Kennedy Director/Choreographer who hails from Belfast, adding another poignant layer to this engulfing spectacle. And Noel Kirrane’s musical direction was so moving and impressive.

The simplicity of a rising black gauze established the sinking ship far more powerfully than a too bright projection from a Night To Remember and at the end the audience rose for one of the most sustained and prolonged ovations I have ever experienced in the theatre and then applauded a superb and moving reprise of the Godspeed Titanic was powerful almost beyond description.

Mairy Yeston wrote music and lyrics. Michael Coen was an impressive Capt. Smith, Patrick Howley was a fine Murdoch, Niall Conway was impressive as Thomas Andrew, John Morley was the excellent Bellboy. Liz Kelleher was a wonderful Madeline Astor. Richard Crumlish was accurate as Radio Man. Gerry Hughes as Guggenheim was a tower of strength. Siobhan Campbell was amazing as Alice Beane and Lauragh Gill was radiant as Kate McGowan. Daithi Ryder was wonderful as Etches and he brought humour and pathos to the part.

Sean Costello deserves every praise and superlative for his Barrett, the Stoker and his wonderful voice especially in How Did They Build Titanic? Barrett’s Song and Proposal brought emotions flooding inside me.

The set took about 1,000 hours of work to build and had more timber than a large house and had nine sets of stairs and cost more than E7,000 to construct outside of volunteer labour. The show must have cost almost a hundred thousand euros to put on and it was a powerful reminder what a community can do when they have the inspiration and pride and leadership.