0:00:26 > 0:00:33They say that art comes from a sense of place, an anchor for artists.
0:00:33 > 0:00:38On tonight's Arts Show, we look at the influence of here.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40Ulster says noir,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43we chat about the recent explosion of crime fiction informed by
0:00:43 > 0:00:48the Troubles and ask - is it a boys only band of writers?
0:00:48 > 0:00:52Belfast boy Michael McHale tackles John Field.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54From the witch's house in Islandmagee,
0:00:54 > 0:00:58screenwriter Ron Hutchinson has New York under his spell.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02Michael Longley returns to the site of his first good poem.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06And Andre Rieu on life as the king of the waltz.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09But first, artist and writer Oliver Jeffers
0:01:09 > 0:01:12on the art that turned him on to culture.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23One of the first books that made a real impact on me in the way that I
0:01:23 > 0:01:24read now and the emotional engagement
0:01:24 > 0:01:26that you get from reading a book
0:01:26 > 0:01:29that's unlike anything else was One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
0:01:29 > 0:01:31by Ken Kesey. I just got lost in it.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33I think I finished it at five o'clock in the morning
0:01:33 > 0:01:35because I couldn't put it down.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37Got through the last quarter of it in one night.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40It was just such an emotional roller-coaster
0:01:40 > 0:01:43and it affected me in a way that nothing else really could.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50Piece of art that really had a huge impact on me
0:01:50 > 0:01:53is called Action Painting by Mark Tansey.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55And it's a woman painting a still life
0:01:55 > 0:01:57of something she's observing and
0:01:57 > 0:02:00the thing she's observing is a car crash.
0:02:00 > 0:02:01And the car crash is depicted,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03you sort of see it happening off to the left,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06but then it's also on her canvas and it's this notion that you can
0:02:06 > 0:02:08paint impossibilities and it's a very,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12very subtle thing and just the suggestion, the power of suggestion,
0:02:12 > 0:02:15of that really came to personify itself in my work.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21The only one that jumps to mind is Jaws
0:02:21 > 0:02:23and the reason it jumps to mind is
0:02:23 > 0:02:27cos my dad let me watch it when I was six, which is way too young.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30I can go slow ahead. Come on down and chomp some of this shit.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37I remember him telling stories at dinner parties years afterwards,
0:02:37 > 0:02:41laughing about the fact that I came down the stairs and asked,
0:02:41 > 0:02:42"Daddy, can sharks climb stairs?"
0:02:42 > 0:02:43Traumatised.
0:02:47 > 0:02:52I went to the Lyric Theatre in Belfast when I was in my early 20s,
0:02:52 > 0:02:54I think, to see A Night In November by Marie Jones,
0:02:54 > 0:02:55performed by Dan Gordon.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58I won't be here in the morning. I have to go to Dublin.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01"Not available for work as out of the country."
0:03:01 > 0:03:02What?! No, I'm only going to Dublin.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04A wonderful...
0:03:04 > 0:03:08piece of writing. It talked about the multiple perspectives from
0:03:08 > 0:03:12the same place which is something I really enjoy exploring in my work.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17Watching this emotional journey, it's the power of theatre
0:03:17 > 0:03:18and it was a beautiful thing.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32The shoulders jutter as the tears come.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34He closed his eyes.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36Shh.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39Thomas' lips are soft against his ear.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42We'll be all right. I'll look after us, don't worry.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45The wailing comes close, falls and dies.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47The sound of tyres on the driveway outside.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49Car doors opening and closing.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53Ciaran opens his eyes, sees a blue light dancing on the wall.
0:03:54 > 0:03:55"They're here," he says.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03Noir basically is sort of fatalism, it's a bit of cynicism.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05If you look at it in terms of Ulster Noir,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07it's just anything that comes from Ulster
0:04:07 > 0:04:10that is pretty much put into
0:04:10 > 0:04:13the crime genre, the dark sense of humour, black humour,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17that's sort of what we're known for, sort of personality of the place.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20Do you see yourself in a genre?
0:04:20 > 0:04:23I don't know if anybody starts out writing a crime novel.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26I think we start writing about things that concern us and things
0:04:26 > 0:04:29that interest us. I think one of the things that crime does very well is
0:04:29 > 0:04:31it analyses a sense of identity.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33And identity and place are so often
0:04:33 > 0:04:35connected, and particularly in Northern Ireland,
0:04:35 > 0:04:42where identity and geographical location became so synonymous.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45But I think it was almost inevitable that this generation of writers from
0:04:45 > 0:04:49Northern Ireland, we probably move towards crime or noir,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52we probably are hoping to move forward,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55but we're also constantly having to look backward to work out how we got
0:04:55 > 0:04:58- to where we are now. - But I just sometimes wonder...
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Cos I remember '70s, '80s airport novels...
0:05:01 > 0:05:03- Troubles trash.- Troubles trash.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06- Yeah.- And it always felt like a very easy hook.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10If you wanted your novel to have a bit of sex appeal and selling power,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13you know, just stick an Armalite into it and a gunman.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16But they were very rarely written by authors from here,
0:05:16 > 0:05:17that was the difference.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19It was just authors cashing in on
0:05:19 > 0:05:21the fact that this was a troubled spot,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24there was adventure here, there was danger here.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29And quite often they didn't really do their research very well and
0:05:29 > 0:05:32certainly they didn't get the language right and they didn't get
0:05:32 > 0:05:34the humour right. So these are all things the new generation
0:05:34 > 0:05:37of authors, I think, have brought.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44I was the writer who turned Gladiator down.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47They said to me in DreamWorks, "We've got this wonderful story,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49"Ridley Scott wants to do this movie."
0:05:49 > 0:05:51Free the prisoners, go!
0:05:53 > 0:05:54What a load of old tosh.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Who would be interested in a story
0:05:56 > 0:05:57about gladiators in this day and age?
0:05:57 > 0:05:59And I don't believe the underlying story anyway,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01so I turned down Gladiator.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Otherwise, I would have come here today by helicopter.
0:06:05 > 0:06:07I was born in Lisburn
0:06:07 > 0:06:11and we lived in Belfast briefly, then my mother went mad.
0:06:11 > 0:06:12She had a nervous breakdown.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14And we moved out
0:06:14 > 0:06:18to Mullaghboy on Islandmagee. I grew up in the witch's house.
0:06:18 > 0:06:19I'm writing a movie about this.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22It's where the Islandmagee witches lived, eight witches,
0:06:22 > 0:06:26who were arrested in 1711, 20 years after Salem, for witchcraft.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28In prison in Carrickfergus Castle,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31three of them were tortured to death to make them confess,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34five of them were tortured, but not to death.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37Tortured to life, if there is such a thing.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40Something about that house stayed with me.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Something about that strong feminine white magic
0:06:43 > 0:06:47of that place stuck with me.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49And then eventually moved, unfortunately, to Coventry.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56There were some particularly awful, horrible things in the Troubles and
0:06:56 > 0:07:00it was probably when McDade blew himself up
0:07:00 > 0:07:03at the post office in Coventry,
0:07:03 > 0:07:0615 foot away from me, and that kind of shocked me into thinking,
0:07:06 > 0:07:08"What do I think about that?"
0:07:08 > 0:07:10And I started to write and, for the first time,
0:07:10 > 0:07:12I wrote in an Irish voice.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15I assumed that mask of being Irish.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18And then I discovered it wasn't really a mask.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20I had things inside me that were...
0:07:22 > 0:07:26..debating with themselves about who I was, what I felt about that.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29I was just splashing around in the shallows, you know.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32I'd see something I wanted to write about, a detective story,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35a love story. But until the Irish thing
0:07:35 > 0:07:39became what I wrote about, I actually didn't find any truth,
0:07:39 > 0:07:42any granite, any bottom to my writing.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46Look, I'm the last window cleaner in Belfast, I can't let them down.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48That's him, he's yours.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52Sammy MacMurtrey. Computer prediction,
0:07:52 > 0:07:54target terrorist of the month.
0:07:54 > 0:08:00I wrote the first thing that the BBC, I think, seriously tackled the Troubles with.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02It was called The Last Window Cleaner.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06And it was very tendentious, they didn't want to touch that subject
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and that was one of those Play For Today things.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13I'm not too sure about the parka either.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17And it was like a comedy about the Irish Troubles.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20Not a genre, you know, that was vast.
0:08:20 > 0:08:21I wrote a play called Rat In The Skull.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26Again the last thing I wrote about Ireland, about the interrogation of a young Irishman
0:08:26 > 0:08:30during the mainland bombing campaign in London.
0:08:31 > 0:08:36I went to Los Angeles and the first thing I wrote, I won an Emmy.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39And when you get an Emmy, you have, like, a licence for five years,
0:08:39 > 0:08:41it's like winning an Academy Award.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44I thought you got off the boat and they gave you an Emmy.
0:08:44 > 0:08:49I was able to write for HBO, had a deal at DreamWorks.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51I wrote, you know,
0:08:51 > 0:08:56or rewrote, 13 movies for HBO, an industrial amount of work.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59One day they'd give me a thing about the Tuskegee Airmen,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02the black air crews in the Second World War.
0:09:02 > 0:09:03This ain't your country.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08Your country's full of apes and gorillas, malaria,
0:09:08 > 0:09:11- missionaries. - Ain't no gorillas in Harlem.
0:09:12 > 0:09:18The next day they'd give me a thing with Raul Julia about the rainforest
0:09:18 > 0:09:20destruction in Brazil.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24That would not have happened if I'd stayed working for the BBC or ITV in
0:09:24 > 0:09:28England because I think I was already pegged as a working-class writer and
0:09:28 > 0:09:30as an Irish writer and as a Troubles writer.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34And it'd be very comfortable to be the voice of working-class Midlands life,
0:09:34 > 0:09:36you can get a couple of plays out of that.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39The Irish situation,
0:09:39 > 0:09:43you could actually probably look in your own navel and pick four or five
0:09:43 > 0:09:48plays out of that. I've always actually had a sensibility that I won't do rubbish.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51I won't actually do
0:09:51 > 0:09:54Falcon Crest. I won't do something that embarrasses me.
0:09:54 > 0:10:00And it's a kind of faded scrap of gentility or else it's a...
0:10:02 > 0:10:05..commitment to why I started becoming a writer in the first place.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09And I think Irish writers at their best are ones who, like, just go,
0:10:09 > 0:10:14"Let's get out there and see what that wonderful unholy mess of a world is
0:10:14 > 0:10:16"and bring a story back from it."
0:10:17 > 0:10:22Catherine, you're not only a consumer of crime fiction,
0:10:22 > 0:10:23you commission it as well.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26- I do.- So can you give us a precis
0:10:26 > 0:10:29of these two guys' work and what they do?
0:10:29 > 0:10:32Colin came from a different time, we'd moved on.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35I don't like the sound of that. I come from a different time?
0:10:35 > 0:10:37You trying to say he's ancient?
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Well... He's been around for a while.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43What he did was very different.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47If you look back, previously, Troubles throughout '70s, '80s,
0:10:47 > 0:10:52but also if you look to somebody like Bernard MacLaverty, 1983, Cal,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55Deirdre Madden, Hidden Symptoms, 1986,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57Brian Muir, 1990s debut.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01You've got all these people that came before that were writing.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06Glenn Patterson. And they were building a foundation for what Colin
0:11:06 > 0:11:09then came and did, which was smashing it out of the ball park,
0:11:09 > 0:11:13the nun with a gun, bringing it out of where it had been strictly
0:11:13 > 0:11:16serious fiction and sort of saying, "We can play with this,
0:11:16 > 0:11:17"we can use the black humour,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21"we can look at what the area is that we live in,
0:11:21 > 0:11:24"look at what's happening and we can push people,
0:11:24 > 0:11:28"push the boundaries of what we are as a culture."
0:11:28 > 0:11:32And what you see now, with people like Stuart Neville, with Brian,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36is bringing it very contemporary, looking at social-economic factors,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40looking at... It's very post-Troubles, it's very - where are we now?
0:11:40 > 0:11:42I think crime particularly is...
0:11:43 > 0:11:47It allows that kind of vicarious experience of things that we fear,
0:11:47 > 0:11:49it allows us to tap into our fears,
0:11:49 > 0:11:52it allows us to tap into the things that concern us.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56In the real world, clearance rates for crimes are minimal.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00They're tiny. Murder clearance rates are frighteningly small.
0:12:00 > 0:12:01What do you mean by clearance rates?
0:12:01 > 0:12:04The number of people who are actually caught for crimes,
0:12:04 > 0:12:06where there is a successful prosecution.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08Whereas, in crime fiction, that happens all the time.
0:16:21 > 0:16:23How could she explain?
0:16:23 > 0:16:27She couldn't. Was she really going to do this?
0:16:27 > 0:16:28It didn't seem real.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31She glanced uneasily at the clock.
0:16:31 > 0:16:333.17pm.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35Getting dark already.
0:16:35 > 0:16:36He should have rung by now.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39He promised to ring, tell her what to do,
0:16:39 > 0:16:41say when he was coming to take her somewhere safe.
0:16:43 > 0:16:45Where are the women writers?
0:16:45 > 0:16:47- They're all down south.- Yeah.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51There are very few female crime-fiction writers around from the north.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55I can think of three - please jump in if I'm missing anyone -
0:16:55 > 0:17:00it would be Liz Nugent, Kelly Creighton and Claire McGowan,
0:17:00 > 0:17:01who has done particularly well.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04What happened in the south, which is quite interesting,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07is that the first generation of crime writers were all male,
0:17:07 > 0:17:09with one or two exceptions, I mean,
0:17:09 > 0:17:12you had somebody like Arlene Hunt and Alex Barclay
0:17:12 > 0:17:15and then Tana French starting writing at around 2007,
0:17:15 > 0:17:19the same time. Both our debut books came out the same month, actually.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23But now you've Louise Phillips and Liz Nugent and Catherine Howard,
0:17:23 > 0:17:25there's just been this kind of plethora of...
0:17:25 > 0:17:27And I suspect the same thing will happen in the north.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29I suspect we will see more female voices.
0:17:29 > 0:17:35Is there something innately squeamish about crime fiction that...?
0:17:35 > 0:17:37I'm only being... You know.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40Some of the darkest things I've read are by women.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43- So the fairer sex CAN do it. - Absolutely.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47I mean, Liz Nugent's writing about looking at
0:17:47 > 0:17:50sort of the Troubles psyche on
0:17:50 > 0:17:54very sort of low income and, you know, it's very much, like you said,
0:17:54 > 0:17:56Kelly, about the voice.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00Is Ulster Noir at the moment a boys' club?
0:18:00 > 0:18:03It is through no fault of any of ours.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05When you're doing readings now and workshops,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08it's mostly women who are attending.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12Particularly the writing workshops and I know a couple of younger women
0:18:12 > 0:18:14writers who are writing crime novels at the minute.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16I mean, there is more women readers, actually.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18- Absolutely.- The vast majority.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22It's called post-Troubles crime fiction.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24Well, they always tend to refer back to the Troubles.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27It's part of the background, part of the fabric.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30- Yeah.- So I think it will always be there.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33Your work is...
0:18:33 > 0:18:36for want of a better word, taking the mickey out of a lot of what happened
0:18:36 > 0:18:40here as well. Are you ever concerned about how you were addressing
0:18:40 > 0:18:42the political side of Northern Ireland?
0:18:42 > 0:18:45No, I think because, certainly with the first book,
0:18:45 > 0:18:47the worry is that this will never be published.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49You're writing with a complete freedom.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52You never, ever think about, "Oh, this might offend someone."
0:18:52 > 0:18:54Maybe that comes a bit later on.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57I would argue that with the exception of something like what Colin was
0:18:57 > 0:19:01doing with humour, there wasn't really a need for crime fiction
0:19:01 > 0:19:02during the Troubles. I mean,
0:19:02 > 0:19:07crime fiction is about that vicarious experiencing of fear.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09You don't need to experience fear vicariously
0:19:09 > 0:19:10if you're actually experiencing it.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12Do you know what I mean? If it's there on the streets.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14I think there was an element of postponed pain as well.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16I think after the Troubles ended,
0:19:16 > 0:19:19we kind of had the honeymoon period when everybody was happy and there
0:19:19 > 0:19:23was new hope. And I think that's why that kind of explosion of fiction is
0:19:23 > 0:19:26happening now, because people are beginning to register that pain
0:19:26 > 0:19:28of, "Oh, we had to give up this.
0:19:28 > 0:19:30"We were promised this and it never happened.
0:19:30 > 0:19:31"It didn't deliver." I mean,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34I don't think that is specific to Northern Ireland.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37I mean, I think Donald Trump being elected in America was the pain that
0:19:37 > 0:19:41people were feeling, the Brexit was the pain that people were feeling.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44To dismiss that or to say that that pain's not real would be silly.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48What I think's great about the Ulster Noir is that we all have very
0:19:48 > 0:19:50distinctive voices.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53I think if you went into a supermarket and went to the shelves and picked
0:19:53 > 0:19:56out seven or eight crime novels at random and ripped the covers off and
0:19:56 > 0:20:00started reading them, you couldn't tell the difference between them.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03Because they're kind of written to a template and there aren't very
0:20:03 > 0:20:06many distinctive voices. But if you look at the different authors that
0:20:06 > 0:20:07are coming out of Northern Ireland,
0:20:07 > 0:20:12whether it's me or Brian or Adrian, Stuart or Claire, they're all
0:20:12 > 0:20:14very, very different and distinctive voices.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19The streets were dark with something more than night.
0:20:19 > 0:20:23Was that waltz music I could hear faintly on the edge of sound?
0:20:25 > 0:20:26I needed a drink.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31What I had was a coat, a scarf and a microphone.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39I mean, a girl's got to be prepared to meet Andre Rieu in his castle.
0:20:45 > 0:20:52What is it about you that has made you transcend being another jobbing
0:20:52 > 0:20:54classical violinist?
0:20:55 > 0:20:58I very often have the feeling with classical music that the soloists
0:20:58 > 0:21:00and the conductor and the orchestra,
0:21:00 > 0:21:04they are standing there and, in fact, they don't want the audience.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07They don't play for the audience, they play for themselves.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09And I play for the audience.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11I couldn't...
0:21:12 > 0:21:14..play without the audience.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17It's so nice to have this connection.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20I want to grab their hearts.
0:21:20 > 0:21:26You talk about the violin as a very sensuous instrument.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28You talk about it almost as if it was a woman.
0:21:28 > 0:21:29It looks like a woman.
0:21:29 > 0:21:31It's, for me, personally,
0:21:31 > 0:21:37the best instrument I could play because it's so...
0:21:37 > 0:21:42- together with you.- What does Marjorie, your wife and your manager,
0:21:42 > 0:21:46- make of that?- Oh, she's not jealous at all of my violin because...
0:21:48 > 0:21:50..you must not see it in that way.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53I mean, it's a violin.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55I mean, my wife is my wife.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57That's a different thing.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01We don't have a manager who tells us what to do, what to play,
0:22:01 > 0:22:02where to go.
0:22:04 > 0:22:05We do it ourselves.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07But how liberating is that?
0:22:07 > 0:22:10It's fantastic. I could only
0:22:10 > 0:22:12tell all other artists, "Do it yourself,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15"leave the managers at home because they do it only for the money."
0:22:15 > 0:22:20We earn a lot of money but a lot of money goes out because I have
0:22:20 > 0:22:25100...110 people on my payroll.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29You can imagine when we travel to Belfast, with the whole crew,
0:22:29 > 0:22:31everything has to be paid.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34But I don't complain. It's OK.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36I am my own boss.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40People very often ask me, "What do you do with your money?"
0:22:40 > 0:22:42I buy my freedom.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46Did you love music or was it the fact that your father was a musician?
0:22:46 > 0:22:47Both.
0:22:47 > 0:22:53- Both.- Sometimes you worry that if you are the child of somebody who's
0:22:53 > 0:22:56very musical, you inherit it because they want you to.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59Yeah, yeah. They did. They did. So it was difficult.
0:22:59 > 0:23:05A difficult time. And I think I've found my own way by doing what I do.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09By opening the classical music for everybody in the world,
0:23:09 > 0:23:10not only for a small elite.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15- Yeah.- So that was, I think, my way to escape.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20They were very severe and not very loving, so...
0:23:21 > 0:23:26From the moment I met Marjorie, my life was opening.
0:23:26 > 0:23:27Yes.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31That was a creative partnership that has brought...
0:23:31 > 0:23:33Yes, a loving and a creative.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36She had respect for me and she believed in me.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40But there must have been classical-music snobs who did,
0:23:40 > 0:23:44and probably still do, look down on what Andre Rieu does.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47Yes, yes, they are still there but, you know...
0:23:47 > 0:23:52I'm sure I do my job with all my responsibility,
0:23:52 > 0:23:56I have a beautiful orchestra and we make beautiful recordings
0:23:56 > 0:24:02and, you know, for me, there is no classical music and
0:24:02 > 0:24:05light or pop music, it's all...
0:24:05 > 0:24:08For me, there is only good and bad music.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12- You talk also about making eye contact with the audience.- Yeah.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17- With everybody.- How many people would normally be at one of your concerts?
0:24:17 > 0:24:1810,000.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21How can you make eye contact?
0:24:21 > 0:24:22I look them in the eye.
0:24:22 > 0:24:28Everybody. And it's true, I recognise a lot of people after.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31I say, "Oh, yeah, you were sitting there and there and you were doing
0:24:31 > 0:24:33"that and that." "How can you know that?"
0:24:33 > 0:24:37- "I see it."- I know you're on the road and you're touring,
0:24:37 > 0:24:42but have you got more ambition for the Johann Strauss Orchestra?
0:24:42 > 0:24:44In fact, I have only one ambition,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47that is staying in good health and go on like this.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49Because that is my dream.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52I always dreamt of travelling the world
0:24:52 > 0:24:55because I love to see the world,
0:24:55 > 0:24:59but not as a tourist, but with my orchestra,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02making music for the people and looking at them into the eyes.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06That's what I love about the world.
0:25:06 > 0:25:08Because we are all the same, in fact.
0:25:09 > 0:25:10The Irish people...
0:25:12 > 0:25:14..they are a little bit higher.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16- A bit of an edge. - A little lever higher.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20Have you got anything to say to the fans in Belfast?
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Yes, I would like to say that when you come to the concert,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27the people in Belfast, bring your heart, I'll do the same,
0:25:27 > 0:25:30and we will have an evening together we will never forget.
0:25:36 > 0:25:37Memory.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44In the bedroom above the post office, now demolished,
0:25:44 > 0:25:46on the Lisburn Road,
0:25:46 > 0:25:50I wrote my first poem that was any good.
0:25:50 > 0:25:52Epithalamion.
0:25:53 > 0:25:58Rhyme words dancing down the page ahead of the argument.
0:26:00 > 0:26:07And the closing image of king and queen, inspired by you and me,
0:26:07 > 0:26:08in Nassau Street.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18Waiting for Kennedy's loud cavalcade,
0:26:18 > 0:26:22split seconds, Kennedy,
0:26:22 > 0:26:23de Valera.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31I phoned you and recited my new poem.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37Then I dined with my mother, who had baked cod in tomatoes,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40onions and breadcrumbs.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45Was that the night I sat up late to hear
0:26:45 > 0:26:49Clay beating Liston on the radio?
0:26:57 > 0:27:00As the city sleeps and your imagination wakes,
0:27:00 > 0:27:02it's time to say goodnight.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05And if you've a hankering for yet more culture,
0:27:05 > 0:27:07here's what's not to miss.
0:27:07 > 0:27:08It's the must-see minute.
0:27:09 > 0:27:14She may be a he, but in our increasingly gender-fluid society,
0:27:14 > 0:27:16there is nothing like a dame.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18May McFettridge is the longest serving
0:27:18 > 0:27:21at over a quarter of a century at the Grand Opera House.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23Oh, yes, she is!
0:27:23 > 0:27:25While William Caulfield cross-dresses his way
0:27:25 > 0:27:27into a second decade at
0:27:27 > 0:27:29the Millennium Forum in Derry-Londonderry.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33Do check out your local press for a panto near or, indeed, behind you.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39He created one of fiction's most magical worlds, Narnia -
0:27:39 > 0:27:42CS Lewis, or Jack, as he was known to his friends.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45His first imaginative landscape, East Belfast,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49celebrates the local boy done good in a wide-ranging arts festival and
0:27:49 > 0:27:51you don't need a wardrobe to get to it.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58And it's no mystery that Ian Rankin loves Northern Ireland.
0:27:58 > 0:27:59And after being caught one more time
0:27:59 > 0:28:02up on Cyprus Avenue for Van the Man's birthday bash,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05he's back on our streets for another celebration,
0:28:05 > 0:28:0830 years of Inspector Rebus.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12Can we expect falling crime rates as Rebus retires to Belfast?
0:28:12 > 0:28:14I'm sure the PS and I can spare him a desk.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19And The Arts Show is on BBC Radio Ulster
0:28:19 > 0:28:21and BBC Radio Foyle Tuesdays to Fridays
0:28:21 > 0:28:24at half past six or find us online or on social media.