Episode 10 The Arts Show

Hello, and welcome to a brand-new series of The Arts Show for 2014.

And we kick things off here in Parliament Buildings, Stormont,

where I'll be talking to the key decision-maker

at the heart of arts and culture in Northern Ireland.

So, we're at the beginning of a brand-new year for the arts,

and there's a lot to get through on tonight's show.

Here's what's coming up.

The Minister For Culture, Arts And Leisure, Caral Ni Chuilin,

shares her vision for the coming year.

Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet and literary lothario -

we investigate.

Exciting new Londonderry band The Clameens

make their BBC TV debut.

And we hear from some of our arts practitioners

who to watch out for in 2014.

My big one-to-watch for 2014 has got to be Ballet School.

It's Ros Blair, originally from Antrim, now based in Berlin.

She's working with the Bella Union label, hugely influential,

already got one single under her belt, more to come this year.

I think it's a guaranteed winner.

# And the friends who we make

# Are the stones that we lay. #

As well as that, keep an eye on Verse Chorus Verse, and Arborist,

two singer-songwriters with music in the pipeline

that is going to blow some people's minds.

In the world of craft,

my one-to-watch for 2014 is Alison Lowry,

a Belfast-based glass-maker.

She's a recent graduate from the University of Ulster

and she's had some very good international

and national success already, including Shanghai and London.

And she's just been selected for a residency for one month

in the prestigious Corning Museum Of Glass

in New York State.

For me, this year, it's Claire McGowan.

One of that new breed of writers from the North of Ireland

and, most importantly, writing from the feminist perspective.

Her new novel, The Lost, takes us on a journey with Paula Maguire,

a forensic psychologist,

as she investigates crime in current-day Northern Ireland,

but has strong links to the past.

Ken Bruen says she is Ireland's answer to Ruth Rendell.

Of all the plays written about life in Ireland,

few have put as many bums on seats on both sides of the Atlantic

as The Colleen Bawn.

Written in the mid-19th century by Dubliner Dion Boucicault,

it's rumoured that even Queen Victoria

went to see it several times.

Now, leading contemporary Irish theatre company Druid

is bringing it here to the Grand Opera House in Belfast next week.

But what is the secret of this play's enduring appeal?

Eithne Shortall finds out.

The Colleen Bawn is about people in a mess.

Eily O'Connor, a beautiful young woman from a humble background,

secretly marries Hardress Cregan, a wealthy landowner.

But his family is facing financial ruin,

and his mother has fixed him up with a local rich girl.

There are many more twists to this story,

but suffice to say that the stage is set

for love, betrayal, social embarrassment,

and maybe even murder.

Melodrama doesn't get any more, well, melodramatic, than this.

It's a very boisterous, intense world.

It has a convoluted plot, a use of spectacle.

One moment you can be laughing,

the next moment, you're hopefully crying.

It would be the equivalent of a television soap opera today.

It's a story about people you can care about.

And lots of fun as well.

It was only a shower, I believe. Are you wet, ma'am?

Dry as a biscuit.

Ah. Then it's yourself is the brave and beautiful lady,

as bold and proud as a ship before the blast.

'But The Colleen Bawn is always going to be a leap of faith

'for a director today.'

There's my mare! And who comes with?

It's Mr Hardress Cregan himself.

Are there certain elements of the play

that you've had to push to the fore

to make sure it works for a contemporary audience?

The obviousness of the drama, i.e. the melodrama,

appears so out of...

sync with the kind of nuanced

sort of interior drama

of the 20th/21st century.

'But the fact is that if you then commit to

'telling the story in as truthful a way as you can,

'it actually takes care of itself very well.'

-I'm yours.

-Anne, you don't know all.

I know more than I wanted, that is enough.

This certainly says a lot

for the man who wrote it a century and a half ago.

If you put it in terms of its time,

Boucicault was a rock star.

The Colleen Bawn occurs at a real peak of Boucicault's career.

It ran for nearly 280 performances.

It made Boucicault a fortune.

But Boucicault's biggest success was putting Ireland on stage.

He said, "I have written the first national drama set in Ireland.

"I have written the first Irish drama."

He was very proud of himself.

Yet, Boucicault was living in New York

when he came across the true story

of the murder of 15-year-old Ellen Scanlan

in Clare in 1819.

He immediately knew that if he changed the tragic outcome,

this story could be a hit with Irish Americans,

desperate for a glimpse of the old country.

When The Colleen Bawn was first staged,

was it portraying a certain image of Ireland to foreign audiences?

Boucicault is presenting an image of Ireland as charming,

as rustic, as romantic, and as appealing.

It may seem, from our perspective of the 21st century,

to be stereotypical and almost racist,

but it's more than that, because what...

Boucicault's trying to do

is create, at the time,

quite a modern take on the complicated relationship

between the different social classes in Ireland.

Cos that's certainly how the Irish audience

and critics at the time saw it.

-My name is Anne Chute.

-I am Eily O'Connor.

You are the Colleen Bawn - the pretty girl.

And you are the Colleen Ruaidh.

She is beautiful.

How lovely she is.

-We are rivals.

-I am sorry for it.

Like all melodrama, The Colleen Bawn

isn't really about the psychology of the individual characters,

but about their place in society.

In this production, the set and costumes

neatly define the twin worlds of landlords and peasants,

chandeliers and shillelaghs.

Everybody is deformed by the colonising process.

So there's an unnaturalness about it as a way of living.

Boucicault caught that quite well.

All art creates fictions.

But there are fictions that, in some way,

help us understand ourselves better.

So, surely stereotypes don't get more obvious

than a poteen-drinking tramp?

Now I'll go up to my whiskey-still.

It is above my head this minute,

being in a hole in the rocks they call O'Donoghue's Stables.

A sort of a water cave.

The people round here think that the cave is haunted with bad spirits,

and they say that of a dark, stormy night,

strange unearthly noises is heard coming out of it.

It is me singing The Night Before Larry Was Stretched.

'However, Boucicault created Myles na Coppaleen

'as full of wit rather than drink,

'and subverted that prevailing view of the Irish.'

He took what appeared to be stage Irishness,

and turned it into a weapon.

So that the most obviously stage-Irish character on stage,

who's Myles na Coppaleen, is in fact cleverer

than anybody else on that stage.

Here's the taste of a letter I was asked to give Your Honour.

'No-one ever mentions home rule.

'And the Anglo-Irish and peasants accommodate each other.

'It's a reassuring world, painted in broad brush strokes,

'and this demands a broad style of acting too.'

He didn't, no, I am his wife.

Oh, what have I said?

-What?

-I didn't mean to confess it - no, I didn't.

But you wrung it from me in defence of him.

You're his wife?

-They're at it and I'm too late.

-I can't believe it.

Show me your certificate.

'One of the things we all know we did,

'and the actors and everything,

'we would sit down and say we're subtexting this too much,

'and playing the implications of the scene,

'or the psychology of the scene.'

But in order to move the play through its various scenes,

you have to play the action of the piece.

OK, so it's not one of those plays that you go to

looking for what they really mean in what characters are saying.

Well, the play won't let you.

I'm not going to give the ending away,

but let's just say Boucicault is a master

when it comes to sorting out a mess,

and getting the audience to buy into it.

It plays on the emotions of its audience,

and it's actually quite amazing

to see audiences react

in standard and stereotypical fashion,

so we are getting "oohs" and "aahs" and intakes of breath

at turns of the plot which seem, on the face of it,

to be tremendously obvious.

All I ask is that you never mention this visit to Mr Daly.

As for you, this should purchase your silence.

Life to you!

HORSE NEIGHS

The Colleen Bawn is not the literary theatre of Yeats, or indeed Synge,

it's not a play that poses questions,

but it does provide answers

that make sense at a gut level.

After a century and a half, surely this is the key to its success.

One artist I'm looking forward to seeing more of in 2014

is Cian Donnelly. He's a performance artist,

and in the last couple of years he's had shows in Belfast and in Derry,

which have really developed his work.

The performances are challenging,

thought-provoking,

disturbing, sometimes, but always really engaging

and they make you think.

Another artist I'm looking forward to seeing this year is Gerard Carson,

a younger artist who works with small,

delicate, intricate sculptures, paintings and drawings,

which have fields of colour, delicate lines -

really beautiful work.

I think Emma Logue is really interesting this year.

She is a Northern Ireland girl, based in London,

not formally trained in fashion design,

and has created these most stylish corporate-wear fashions

for women in the financial sector and women in business.

I think she's hit the nail on the head

for what people want in the fashion world this season.

The voice to listen out for this year is Newry baritone Ben McAteer.

Ben's been completing his training in London at the National Opera Studio.

He's a fantastic young singer.

Big guy. Big, wonderfully resonant voice - really knows how to use it.

This guy could go all the way.

See him in May at the Ulster Hall at a lunch-time recital.

Now, the Minister of the Department Of Culture, Arts And Leisure,

Caral Ni Chuilin, has been in post here for nearly three years now.

After an amazing year for Derry-Londonderry,

we wondered what her strategy for 2014 holds for

the rest of Northern Ireland?

I met her here at Stormont to discuss.

Happy New Year to you, as well.

You've been in the post since May 2011.

Was it a baptism of fire, taking on that post?

It was, absolutely.

And I still enjoy the view

that I have the best portfolio in the Executive.

But not everyone shares that view,

so, particularly around budgets,

I have to fight my corner.

How do you fight your corner then? How do you say arts is important?

-I have a basket full of arguments that I regularly use.

-Like what?

Well, I mean, if we look, for example, at the City Of Culture

and the experience from it,

and the economy for the northwest

has certainly received a boost as a result of it.

Aspirations have been raised.

People, if they didn't already know,

certainly know now that there's money to made in the arts -

at a very, very crude level.

So, is that how you argue then?

-The success of a theatre show, or a ballet or..?

-Absolutely.

Absolutely. But, I mean, when we talk about the economy,

we need to include arts in it.

And I think the argument thus far...

When I came into the department, it wasn't there.

To be frank, it wasn't there.

I think we have a brilliant and thriving sector here.

And we need to make sure that there's a constant stream

and a seamless link from school until college,

or even until whatever...vocation people decide to choose,

and to make sure that people see it as a good career path.

Do you think that confidence that you're talking about

has been demonstrated through....

We've just recently left the Year Of Culture in Derry-Londonderry.

Did you see a change in the dynamic of that city over the last year?

Certainly, the creativity and the vibe around arts and culture

was a real strong pulse in the city.

I recognised that going into it.

I went up with an open mind,

and I got sucked in.

I got sucked in big-time,

and I think we need to learn from Derry.

Well, you've obviously put your money where your mouth is

and invested more money

into some form of legacy to continue into 2014.

Recently, on the news,

there has been the protests outside the Ebrington buildings,

1881, to keep that open.

-Should Derry aspire to have a municipal gallery?

-Of course.

And I'm currently scoping out the Shirt Factory in Rosemount.

What about the fact that those two buildings

are already match-fit for contemporary art?

I understand that. But they're not in my department

and I'm not waiting on an argument getting sorted -

I'm scoping out, not just about a gallery space,

but an exhibition space.

So, you're looking at another shirt factory,

not the one on Patrick Street?

Well, I'm looking at...

Cos that's already been made match-fit, as well.

At the minute, I'm scoping out space,

and what I'll do is I'll look at options and then make a decision.

Some people might say, "Could you ever just leave Derry to one side?

"They've had their year in the sun,

"Belfast has also had a lot of investment.

"I'm sitting here in Cookstown..." Other parts, I mean, Fermanagh.

-Are you going to look at the whole of Northern Ireland?

-I have been.

And recently I was in Newry,

working with Sticky Fingers,

a children's arts programme.

And Newry are quite angry, because they don't feel

they've got their fair share, as does Fermanagh,

as does East Tyrone, West Tyrone.

As does parts of Down,

as are parts of Belfast.

Because there's still an argument in Belfast,

all the investment goes to east and south and the city centre,

north and west are by and large overlooked.

And I have no issue with that, I think people have a right to demand,

and not just demand, but to expect services.

It shouldn't be access to services or arts by postcode.

But I haven't got enough money,

so I need to prioritise

and what I've done to that end

is look at a business plan that does look at social inclusion,

that does look at tackling poverty,

that does look at enhancing what we can do collectively.

And I'm asking people to come up with, I suppose,

a product that meets that

and, if it does, I would certainly find the money.

With the recent Haass talks,

culture became almost a divisive issue.

How can arts and culture here bring people together?

What would be your aspiration as the Culture Minister?

I don't mind about a controversy around arts,

because I think it's good.

And I would like to have a debate around

the importance of culture and arts in our community and our society.

I'd like people to have a debate

about how they can access those services

and that experience a lot better.

I just think that at times people feel that the arts has been hijacked,

it's become elite.

I don't accept that. I know the arts providers don't accept that, either.

I know some of the arts providers I work with,

particularly around the Christmas period, in Belfast,

went out of their way

to make sure that people came to the exhibitions and shows.

We provided additional money for tickets

to help people who really couldn't afford, in the month of Christmas,

to go to arts, or people who felt it wasn't for them.

It's difficult though if somebody's going to leave a bomb in a holdall

outside the MAC when you're bringing your kids to see a Christmas show.

It's hugely difficult.

They're a minority of people who don't have the support of people,

and arts do what they did best, they just got on with it.

You know, you love the learning of the Irish language,

and the Feile and the Irish music,

what else fires you?

What do you do when you do have spare time?

I put my MP3 player on.

And I have a real range of taste of music

that goes from Led Zeppelin to Bach.

If it's not too late,

I put the music on really loud and I'll chill.

By and large, I normally turn the TV off, I'm a big radio fan.

I went in to see the Ulster Orchestra one time in Ulster Hall,

and it was amazing.

It was brilliant, and I went in kind of thinking,

"I'll have to go and see one of these, because I haven't been yet."

Do you know, almost as a duty?

And I was hooked.

I haven't really been to a lot of plays.

And it's not because I don't like them, it is just about time.

But I think I'm really lucky enough

to be looking at the things,

rather than looking for the things.

Minister, thank you very much

-for your time.

-Thank you.

My picks for 2014, Maiden Voyage Dance Company premiere a new piece

by Spanish choreographer Enrique Cabrera

at the Belfast Children's Festival in March.

Then, in autumn, they're undertaking an exciting project

with Liz Roche's dance company from Dublin.

On the touring circuit, we have Swan Lake coming to the Opera House

and Phoenix Dance Company present a mixed bill

at the Theatre In The Mill in Newtownabbey.

And world-renowned choreographer Jiri Kylian presents

a new Beckett-inspired production, East Shadow,

at the Happy Days International Festival in Enniskillen.

Young performers to keep an eye on in 2014 for me

would be Turlough Convery,

graduated from Guildford last year,

straight into the West End

and won the Stephen Sondheim Vocal Award

for the whole of the UK.

And Mairead Carlen,

who's just been snapped up by Celtic Woman in the States

for one of four to tour.

The 25th of January celebrates the birth of Scotland's greatest poet,

Robert, or Rabbie, Burns.

Northern Ireland has a strong connection with him.

He used to write to the Belfast Newsletter

long before he was published in book form,

and they printed his original work.

Original copies are held here at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast,

which boasts the largest repository of Burns material

outside of Scotland,

some of which is currently on display.

But Rabbie Burns was as prolific in his love life

as he was in his writing.

The Arts Show goes under the tartan to find out more.

# Ae fond kiss

# And then we sever... #

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever

Ae fareweel, and then for ever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

He stands proudly in line

among a long list of literary bad boys.

Behan and Bukowski liked to drink

but, like Lord Byron, Robert Burns loved the lassies.

A celebrity poet in his own short lifetime,

Robert Burns remains today

an international superstar.

Having penned such world music favourites as Ae Fond Kiss,

Auld Lang Syne, and the Red Rose.

# My love is like a red, red rose... #

Who shall say that fortune grieves him,

While the star of hope she leaves him?

Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me

Dark despair around benights me.

Burns can be said, with straight face, to be the nearest thing

that Scotland has to a Lennon or McCartney.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy

Naething could resist my Nancy

But to see her was to love her

But to love her and love for ever.

But alongside the tenderness and the careful craftsmanship,

he was also a master of in-your-face bawdry.

Lyrics fired by a machismo

that might put a modern-day gangsta rapper to shame.

Songs such as The Fornicator or Nine Inch Will Please A Lady

show a peculiar pride in his performance and endowments.

If he had been around today,

Robbie may well have featured on the front pages of the red-top tabloids -

a serial love rat, a father of love children

all the way from the Highlands to high society in Edinburgh.

Had we never lov'd sae kindly

Had we never lov'd sae blindly.

Never met or never parted

We would ne'er been broken-hearted.

Robbie was a prolific lover,

with at least 13 pregnancies bestowed upon at least five women.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!

Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!

Thine be ilka joy and treasure

Peace, enjoyment, love and pleasure!

Burns was a prodigious talent,

he has a back catalogue of some 400 songs and some 200 poems -

translated eventually into over 40 languages.

In fact, Burns' texts have appeared in every major anthology

that has attempted the complete survey of poetry in English

since the early 19th century.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!

Ae fareweel alas, for ever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

And before you get the idea that Robbie was just a heartless womaniser

without a conscience, a brute who loved and left,

there is more evidence of his sensitive soul.

In A Poet's Welcome To His Love-Begotten Daughter,

he embraces in rhyme his newborn, illegitimate daughter

in the face of his public censure by the Kirk.

Here though is a clue to an attitude which, if not exactly feminist,

points to the fact that he believes women are as intelligent as men.

Burns had several correspondents who were aristocratic ladies,

women upon whom he could try out his ideas, his work too.

His homely Scots dialect and plain-spokenness appealed

to the masses in Scotland and also in Ulster -

prone as so many of these people were to be politically critical

of their supposed masters and betters.

His support for the French Revolution,

his ability to poke the finger of fun at religious hypocrisy,

his appetite for life, and the ladies,

meant that he wasn't everyone's cup of tea back then.

I'm sitting at the heart of the very cottage where Robbie was born.

And, in the 250th anniversary of his birth,

an estimated 90 million fans

celebrated Burns Night across the globe.

I think Robbie would have settled for that.

Lock up your great-granddaughters!

Well, that's it from The Arts Show for tonight.

Join me live on Twitter now.

And just to say many congratulations to Sinead Morrissey

who has won the TS Eliot Prize for poetry.

You can keep up-to-date with arts and culture

on BBC Radio Ulster's Arts Extra, weeknights at 6:30pm.

But we leave you with one of the most exciting local music acts

of 2014 - The Clameens, from Derry.

In honour of Burns, we asked them to reinterpret the Burns classic

My Luve Is Like A Red, Red Rose. Good night.

# O my Luve is like a red, red rose

# That's newly sprung in June

# O my Luve is like a melodie

# That's sweetly played in tune

# As fair art thou, my bonnie lass

# So deep in luve am I

# And I will luve thee still, my dear

# Till the seas a' gang dry

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# Till the seas gang dry

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# Till the seas gang dry

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# And the rocks melt wi' the sun

# And I will luve thee still, my dear

# While the sands of life shall run

# Fare thee well, my only Luve

# Fare thee well, a while

# And I will come again, my Luve

# Tho' ten thousand mile

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# Till the seas gang dry

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# Till the seas gang dry

# O my Luve is like a red, red rose

# That's newly sprung in June

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# Till the seas gang dry

# Till the seas gang dry, my dear

# Till the seas gang dry. #