:00:22. > :00:25.Welcome to The Arts Show, and tonight we come from an
:00:26. > :00:28.international children's festival, featuring acts from 12 European
:00:29. > :00:55.Countries, taking place right here in Newry.
:00:56. > :01:00.So, we're in Newry for the Small Size Big Festival, an international
:01:01. > :01:05.gathering of theatre and art for children featuring acts from 12
:01:06. > :01:09.European countries. Here's what else is on tonight's show.
:01:10. > :01:15.Brian Friel's acclaimed stage play Philadelphia, Here I Come! Turns 50.
:01:16. > :01:20.We open our ears to the sounds around us.
:01:21. > :01:25.She was one of our ones to watch in 2014, artist Alison Lowry.
:01:26. > :01:29.And a church minister has his say on censorship of the arts The Small
:01:30. > :01:44.Size Big Festival is being hosted by the Newry-based children's art
:01:45. > :01:51.organization Sticky Fingers. Its chief executive is Grainne
:01:52. > :01:55.Powell. This festival is to celebrate a programme where work is
:01:56. > :01:59.produced from countries all around Europe and further afield, the best
:02:00. > :02:08.for very young children. What is the benefit for Newry? We wanted to
:02:09. > :02:15.bring it here because it furthers a child's rights to the arts. This was
:02:16. > :02:21.a great way to show what we have and how we can use it. A lot of
:02:22. > :02:22.imagination has been used to turn on usual spaces into thriving
:02:23. > :02:46.performance areas. Over ?1 million has been invested in
:02:47. > :02:51.the city. Over 300 international -- another 10,000 local people will
:02:52. > :02:57.benefit from local programmes. They will flock to different events. Our
:02:58. > :03:03.big spectacular will attract over 3,000 people per night. So what
:03:04. > :03:11.big spectacular will attract over the endgame
:03:12. > :03:12.big spectacular will attract over had an idea of having this project
:03:13. > :03:17.to kick-start the arts into action again, and one of the big outcomes
:03:18. > :03:22.has been that all the organisations have come together. We have a
:03:23. > :03:28.vision, a plan, we are all working towards achieving the new Theatre.
:03:29. > :03:39.But also it is looking at what is possible, sharing expertise and
:03:40. > :03:43.experiences. Thank you. Brian Friel is rightly considered to
:03:44. > :03:46.be one of the greatest living English-language dramatists. Rarely
:03:47. > :03:48.a year goes by without a production of his work in theatres around the
:03:49. > :03:52.world. The Lyric Theatre in Belfast is
:03:53. > :03:55.currently putting on a Friel double bill, Molly Sweeney and the play
:03:56. > :03:56.that established his reputation 50 years ago this year, Philadelphia,
:03:57. > :04:10.Here I Come! Brian Friel was born in County
:04:11. > :04:15.Tyrone, but his voice as a playwright has been heard around the
:04:16. > :04:22.world. He has received the highest awards. Yet his concerns as a writer
:04:23. > :04:27.never stray far from home, as he explores human frailty with his
:04:28. > :04:34.trademark humour. Philadelphia, Here I Come! Was his
:04:35. > :04:40.breakthrough. Is it daunting taking on a Brian
:04:41. > :04:45.Friel later direct? Daunting is one way to describe it, but exciting. I
:04:46. > :04:52.think Philadelphia, Here I Come! Is my favourite play. The most obedient
:04:53. > :04:58.father I ever had. And now for a lesson in the English-language.
:04:59. > :05:07.Repeat slowly after me, another day over. Another day over.
:05:08. > :05:09.Philadelphia, Here I Come! Is the story of a shopkeeper about to
:05:10. > :05:15.emigrate to the USA. It is a play about family and
:05:16. > :05:17.communication, and the lack of, between this man and his son. There
:05:18. > :05:33.is a wonderful story between this man and his son. There
:05:34. > :05:38.first of Brian Friel's place to be set in his fictional town in County
:05:39. > :05:44.Donegal, but he makes this one small place division of Irish society.
:05:45. > :05:47.It is definitely a very small town, and there is a definite sense of
:05:48. > :05:54.scrimping, they are looking to the pen is that they have. It is quite
:05:55. > :05:57.hard on the state and the church, and in 1964 it must have been
:05:58. > :06:01.absolutely shocking. Philadelphia, Here I Come! Is Brian
:06:02. > :06:05.Friel's brilliant dissection of society in which he was living, but
:06:06. > :06:12.it is also the story of an individual. It is all over.
:06:13. > :06:25.Let us talk about that device, which is so effective and memorable, of
:06:26. > :06:33.the private and public character. Public speaks to the audience. But
:06:34. > :06:39.you have the inner man who bears what he really feels. It is all
:06:40. > :06:45.over. And it is all about to begin. This is the pathos and the tragedy
:06:46. > :06:58.and everything is going through this man, and I am really the thought
:06:59. > :07:06.process. Just think, Gar. Just think. Up there in that jet, and you
:07:07. > :07:10.sitting at the front, your point and Mac fingers poised over the
:07:11. > :07:17.controls. And well -- way down below and Irish boat fishing. It is a
:07:18. > :07:21.double act, but they are also the same person, and then you cannot
:07:22. > :07:35.turn it into something like the odd couple. Say an act of contrition!
:07:36. > :07:48.Gar's lost love is key to understanding how Friel brings
:07:49. > :07:56.bloody well burst. Steady, boys, steady. Her daughters
:07:57. > :08:00.were all be frail and silly like you.
:08:01. > :08:07.Kate's father is a Senator, and ultimately she chooses a doctor over
:08:08. > :08:15.the shopkeeper's son. In 1964 matches were made, people
:08:16. > :08:19.were married off. It is that sort of squinting windows territory where
:08:20. > :08:23.everyone knows everybody's business. But Friel never takes the easy
:08:24. > :08:26.option, and this insight into Irish society is balanced with an insight
:08:27. > :08:31.into Gar himself. We will need to have more security
:08:32. > :08:39.than that. Maybe he will die, tonight, of galloping consumption.
:08:40. > :08:46.What is troubling you? Please, this is serious. What is it.
:08:47. > :08:51.Gar does not have the confidence, and I think he knows that. There is
:08:52. > :08:56.one key line, which is, my fault, all my fault.
:08:57. > :09:00.What Friel uses humour to reveal the devastating truth about a young man
:09:01. > :09:04.who needs to grow up. It is the notion of a young man
:09:05. > :09:14.playing in his bedroom, a John Mann having a football match up there. --
:09:15. > :09:21.a young man. I have never seen a boy with absolute magic in his feet. He
:09:22. > :09:29.is now in position, running up, and... !
:09:30. > :09:36.Has it surprised you that 50 years later, it has such a resonance, it
:09:37. > :09:42.feels as fresh intraday's Ireland as it must have felt than? --
:09:43. > :09:47.intraday's Ireland. I suppose we are closer to what was happening in 1964
:09:48. > :09:52.in terms of lack of opportunities and lack of employment. And that
:09:53. > :10:07.sense of people having to leave. How far have we moved on from 1964?
:10:08. > :10:13.sense of people having to leave. How in many ways. It is an incredible's
:10:14. > :10:14.incredibly daring play. No obscenities, Father dear, the child
:10:15. > :10:26.is only 25. There's a long history here of
:10:27. > :10:29.conflict between art, politics and faith. ELO were famously banned from
:10:30. > :10:32.Ballymena in the '90s over fears about drink, drugs, debauchery and
:10:33. > :10:34.the devil, and BBC Northern Ireland's controversial programme
:10:35. > :10:42.The Show drew protests from politicians and some Christians
:10:43. > :10:44.alike. Just last month we saw the Reduced Shakespeare Company's
:10:45. > :10:48.comedy, The Bible -The Complete Word of God (Abridged), ditched then
:10:49. > :10:53.reinstated at The Theatre in the Mill in Newtownabbey. Plenty has
:10:54. > :10:56.already been said about that, but we decided to ask a Christian minister
:10:57. > :11:10.for his personal take on the controversy.
:11:11. > :11:17.Art for me is something that challenges and confronts. I do not
:11:18. > :11:21.want art that makes me feel comfortable, or that a firm is my
:11:22. > :11:26.deeply held beliefs, I do not want art that norms. I do not want our
:11:27. > :11:34.that makes me feel uncomfortable. -- I do want art. I want art that
:11:35. > :11:37.challenges all I hold dear, that that invigorates my mind and
:11:38. > :11:40.spirit. I want art that may be prompts me to ask the questions of
:11:41. > :11:46.myself that I would not under normal circumstances. Because I believe
:11:47. > :12:01.that art should do all of the above, I want to encounter art that makes
:12:02. > :12:06.change. I cannot leave the same -- as the same individual, because
:12:07. > :12:10.something has happened. They have been an openness on my part to enter
:12:11. > :12:21.into a conversation, to hear a voice that is not my own, or
:12:22. > :12:24.into a conversation, to hear a voice it and to respond. Censorship for me
:12:25. > :12:28.is wrong, just as making a decision based on seeing a clip is wrong
:12:29. > :12:34.because art is always meant to be seen in its wholeness. No one would
:12:35. > :12:39.cut a square out of a da Vinci painting and on the basis of that
:12:40. > :12:43.square decide whether they like or hate his work. Similarly no one can
:12:44. > :12:48.watch a clip of a play in the side it is not suitable for the general
:12:49. > :12:56.public. We elect our leadership to lead to make sure that society runs
:12:57. > :13:00.smoothly, and we did not elect them to moral lives. In certain quarters
:13:01. > :13:05.in the Christian consist -- constituency, there is an uneasy --
:13:06. > :13:10.unease with how the church finds itself. In the past, nor -- not only
:13:11. > :13:15.was the church heard in all sections of society, it was the voice that
:13:16. > :13:19.decision-makers listened to. Now we find ourselves in a new
:13:20. > :13:23.dispensation. The past is past and we need to find ourselves in the
:13:24. > :13:29.present and a duck for the future, with the changing face of Ireland as
:13:30. > :13:33.it becomes more and more diverse. -- adopt for the future. The church
:13:34. > :13:37.finds itself becoming a voice in the conversation, but now it is an equal
:13:38. > :13:41.voice. Maybe what we need going forward is the top is back to
:13:42. > :13:46.cultivate a new sense of Christian tolerance, a way of saying we
:13:47. > :13:51.believe in a God who gave up his rights to become just as one of
:13:52. > :13:55.ours. To encounter the messiness of this world and bring a message of
:13:56. > :13:59.hope, but not one that says I am right and you are wrong, and a
:14:00. > :14:03.tolerance that allows me to realise that I do not have God all figured
:14:04. > :14:04.out. And do exactly what he would not and would stand for and accept.
:14:05. > :14:24.Or watch. Time now to profile an award-winning
:14:25. > :14:29.glass ah Time now to profile an award-winning
:14:30. > :14:38.watch in 2014. Time now to profile an award-winning
:14:39. > :14:38.artist in residence position at the internationally renowned Museum of
:14:39. > :15:03.Glass in New York City. I feel the need to create things.
:15:04. > :15:05.The minute I started working with glass, that was it. The penny
:15:06. > :15:21.dropped. I graduated in 2009. I was a mature
:15:22. > :15:28.student. I started late. Even now I'm not a full-time artist. I'm also
:15:29. > :15:36.a mother and that takes up a vast proportion of my time.
:15:37. > :15:44.I'm quite impatient. I feel that I had this period that I wasn't doing
:15:45. > :15:54.any art work so I'm very impatient and very driven.
:15:55. > :16:04.Glass captures very well. A lot of my work is about loss, physical loss
:16:05. > :16:08.of a person or a loss of part of yourself and, at the time I was
:16:09. > :16:13.graduating, I'd just had my first two children, so this christening
:16:14. > :16:17.robe has been in my family for well over 100 years. To me, it described
:16:18. > :16:25.a family tree of sorts. Around this time as well, the first wearer of
:16:26. > :16:28.the robe died so it began to encompass the fragility and delicacy
:16:29. > :16:34.between birth and death. There's one piece for every person that had ever
:16:35. > :16:41.worn the robe. Also, I worked with it in a different way. That's when I
:16:42. > :16:46.started to doing the spot glass work, so the lay layers were fired
:16:47. > :16:58.all together into a block in the kiln. I cut and
:16:59. > :17:04.all together into a block in the more successful pieces. I found this
:17:05. > :17:09.little baby's cap on eBay and I decided to recreate it in glass. I
:17:10. > :17:13.moulded so it that it kind of still looks like a skull, you know. I like
:17:14. > :17:16.working with things that reference the body, but the body is no longer
:17:17. > :17:19.there. It was around this time that I
:17:20. > :17:24.realised actually what I was working with was a mother's memories,
:17:25. > :17:31.somebody had put this bonnet away very carefully and kept it and stuff
:17:32. > :17:36.in the same way that I've kept my children's first shes. When it came
:17:37. > :17:40.out of this kiln, this glass was broken and I sandblasted it to make
:17:41. > :17:45.it look more heavy and more like a cap. The referencing in that piece,
:17:46. > :17:49.hence the title, there is a darkness to childhood memories and things
:17:50. > :17:54.like that. My mum hasn't kept any of our clothing but she was a dentist
:17:55. > :17:56.so she kept all of our baby teeth. So it just made sense to me to put
:17:57. > :18:07.them together. I quite like using a hard fact in a
:18:08. > :18:15.sort of very human way. These are part of the 95% series. That relates
:18:16. > :18:19.to the statistic that 95% of people who're here never come forward to
:18:20. > :18:24.the police and never let on, so I'm making these people, you know, their
:18:25. > :18:29.faces, they're nameless, they are just shadows, but they live amongst
:18:30. > :18:39.us. To me, I've interpreted it in a variety of different ways.
:18:40. > :18:43.Definitely a Princess orientated artist. I like working with my
:18:44. > :18:53.hands. I like the sort of repetition of it.
:18:54. > :19:00.I could sit and do these all day long actually.
:19:01. > :19:06.This is a really old technique. It's glass paste. It's one of the ancient
:19:07. > :19:16.glass techniques. These vessels, I deliberately leave the
:19:17. > :19:19.raggedness and what happens in the kiln which is sometimes quite
:19:20. > :19:25.unique. I've been very lucky to get this
:19:26. > :19:30.residency in the glass museum in New York State. This is the largest
:19:31. > :19:34.glass museum I think in the world. This residency will allow me to get
:19:35. > :19:38.back in touch really with my practise, you know. What it was that
:19:39. > :19:44.fired me to make the christening robe and the big pieces. So I think
:19:45. > :19:52.that means by producing more work that has an honesty, value and
:19:53. > :19:58.integrity to it. You can sort of expect some sort of effects, but you
:19:59. > :20:03.can never just know 100% what you are going to get. It's interesting.
:20:04. > :20:08.There are some nice blues going on with the creaminess of the blasts.
:20:09. > :20:12.These pieces still have an essence of what it is that I'm trying to
:20:13. > :20:16.achieve through my more art pieces, if you like, but they are certainly
:20:17. > :20:20.easier for galleries to sell and easier for people to have in their
:20:21. > :20:24.homes. The pieces that I really like
:20:25. > :20:31.making, want to make, are probably more in the fine art side. They
:20:32. > :20:35.don't sell well. They may eventually sell but generally take a long time
:20:36. > :20:40.to sell. I want to market my work in the States. It's where the glass
:20:41. > :20:46.movement started in the '60s, they understand it and collect it.
:20:47. > :20:51.This wee piece was one of the first pieces I ever made and I won't sell
:20:52. > :20:55.it. It probably has more of a commercial appeal than a lot of the
:20:56. > :21:25.work I do, so maybe that one piece, but no, the rest of it is for sale.
:21:26. > :21:42.have asked us to open our ears and listen to sounds in a brand-new way.
:21:43. > :21:49.Our reporter went on a sonic journey to investigate the sounds of field
:21:50. > :21:53.reportings. -- recordings. The world sounds totally different
:21:54. > :21:57.through a microphone. Things that your brain normally
:21:58. > :22:05.filters out suddenly come across as loud and clear and strangely
:22:06. > :22:10.beautiful. Sounds like these are being recorded by people here at the
:22:11. > :22:14.sonic arts research centre at Queens university.
:22:15. > :22:21.So this is the Belfast sound map then. Talk me through this. What are
:22:22. > :22:26.we hearing now? So I've just clicked on something here. It seems to be a
:22:27. > :22:31.recording from the City Hall Gallery upstairs.
:22:32. > :22:34.This is one of a multitude of websites letting you click on field
:22:35. > :22:38.recordings from around the world and closer to home.
:22:39. > :22:44.The great thing about the map is that you can pinpoint an exact
:22:45. > :22:47.location and record your experience within the place and upload it to
:22:48. > :22:52.the map so other people can listen to what it sounds like.
:22:53. > :22:56.The development of tape recording technology in the 1940s allowed us
:22:57. > :23:01.to hear every day sounds as if they were notes played on an instrument,
:23:02. > :23:07.leading to different sounds being spliced together. Trains were
:23:08. > :23:12.particular favourites. By the late '60s, technology allowed
:23:13. > :23:16.recordings to faithfully capture complete sound scapes in great
:23:17. > :23:21.detail. LPs like this one promised
:23:22. > :23:28.psychologically perfect oural environments. I went in century of a
:23:29. > :23:35.more challenging aural environment with graduate John Dahlry. --
:23:36. > :23:40.Darcey. I guess it's about capturing something in sound and playing it
:23:41. > :23:42.over and over again and finding different characteristics and little
:23:43. > :23:43.details you didn't hear the first time. If you paid attention to
:23:44. > :23:58.everything all the time, you time. If you paid attention to
:23:59. > :24:03.of this bowling. Do you want to have a listen, see what it actually
:24:04. > :24:08.sounds like? Yes. What kind of sounds are leaping out at you?
:24:09. > :24:15.Anything catching your attention? It's the nice role off the ball.
:24:16. > :24:21.It's like waves. It's all random, depending on which lane is bowling
:24:22. > :24:30.at which time. So it's undulating waves. A wave of ten pin bowling?
:24:31. > :24:34.Yes. How you word what what type of mike phone it is, how close you get
:24:35. > :24:37.to the sounds. That's where a lot of the artistry and sound art comes
:24:38. > :24:50.from. This seems more real. Stark
:24:51. > :24:54.proximity I think. You suddenly hear all the frequencies when you are
:24:55. > :25:07.closer and you get a lot of the really high end sounds. I felt that
:25:08. > :25:11.one. Another artist, Isabelle Anderson,
:25:12. > :25:14.showed me a very different kind of Belfast sound scape. What's
:25:15. > :25:20.advantageous about recording a sound in a location like this? You get a
:25:21. > :25:25.sense of depth because you've got things like these massive swans that
:25:26. > :25:30.suddenly come up to us and then you get the sounds of the river banks,
:25:31. > :25:33.so other birds in the water, and then you get the songs on the
:25:34. > :25:41.motorway, which is very guard away. In the last year, Isobel's combined
:25:42. > :25:54.field recordings with songs written on the guitar -- very far away. What
:25:55. > :25:57.are you getting by doing this? You get the different contexts. Field
:25:58. > :26:05.recordings are interpreted differently.
:26:06. > :26:12.recordings are interpreted recording. What I wanted to do was
:26:13. > :26:16.recordings are interpreted oppressive, lots of shout. One
:26:17. > :26:21.negotiate walking back from a friend's house, everyone was
:26:22. > :26:24.crawling out the pub and I recorded these guys that were really drunk.
:26:25. > :26:29.Then around the corner somebody was starting up their motorbike. It just
:26:30. > :26:33.sort of fitted. Is there a sense that it's another instrument for you
:26:34. > :26:40.to play with? Absolutely, yes. Not even just another instrument, but
:26:41. > :26:44.another world of instruments. All the different sounds have different
:26:45. > :26:52.qualities. It's almost like you are working with an orchestra.
:26:53. > :26:58.# Don't go there, little darling... #
:26:59. > :27:02.We live in a time when technology allows us to record every aspect of
:27:03. > :27:06.our daily lives. Field recordings won't take over from music, but we
:27:07. > :27:36.are starting to appreciate the world around us in a new way.
:27:37. > :27:44.You can see Isobel Anderson's full performance on the website. We are
:27:45. > :27:48.back in March with a Special Report on Northern Ireland's multiaward
:27:49. > :27:55.winning and newly emerging poetry talent. We end though with a preview
:27:56. > :28:00.of one of the late Seamus Heaney's projects. Five fables is animations
:28:01. > :28:05.based on the stories of the Scots poet Robert Henrison. The animations
:28:06. > :28:11.feature his translations, Barry Douglas's score and the Voice of
:28:12. > :28:17.Billy Connolly. For a country mouse, this stuff you have laid on makes a
:28:18. > :28:21.spread almost good enough... Give over this place. Come where
:28:22. > :28:29.spread almost good enough... live visitor and learn
:28:30. > :28:34.than your Easter. My dish-lickings are more luscious than your feast.
:28:35. > :28:40.My quarters are among the very safest of cat or trap or trip I have
:28:41. > :29:22.no dredge...