Episode 8 Out of the Blue

How or where and two out of the blue, with Graham Little and Joanne

Salley thought stop we are live from the of a summit us tonight, a

musical pedigree includes to let in at Gary Lightbody and supporting

David Gray. Now a latest album has topped the Irish charts, Lisa

Hannigan will be singing live for us. He has already buy it a big art

award in London this year. Tonight, he is moulding a masterpiece in 60

minutes, sculptor Patrick Colhoun and. And he is about to make waves

in a major new TV series about the Titanic, it is actor Gerard

McCarthy! Agreed to have here. Mick is a comfortable. In it is great to

be home. You have spent a lot of time in Dublin and London, do you

get home not much? And try to get home at least once a month, very

recently it has been about once a week. A do still bring you watching

them from your mum. See his like no. Do not start that! What do you miss

most about this place when you are away? We it has to be the sense of

humour. When you are home, the crack you have with your mates and

the crack you have with complete strangers, is very exclusive to

Northern Ireland, so that is heavily what I'm is the most.

men of the plane touches down, you can have banter with the taxi

driver. We will be speaking to Gerard about the great actors he

has worked with and then of course there is the cast of Hollyoaks.

First a, a big thanks to Davy Francis who sent this in. He

decided he wanted to commemorate the presenters of Out of the Blue.

Thank you very much. Good to see that we are inspiring some art of

our own! Grain, you look a bit old in that picture. Christmas for

theatres up and down the land means a ritual chorus of lamp rubbing and

the hauling out of course costumes. Panto is back and is apparently

timeless obsession with men laying on the lipstick and dressing up as

Danes. Mark Maclean it dared to share one famous cross-dresser's

dressing room. This year, the grande dame of comedy, may make

that reach because there until it in the grand opera house. She takes

centre stage for the 22nd year running. My mummy and daddy love me.

My mummy wanted a weaker and, at my daddy wanted a wee boy, both of

them are delighted! They may not thank me for dragging it up, but

some of our finest male entertainers, Jimmy Young, the two

armies, Barry Humphries, or have a great reputation that bidding on

women's close to earn a living. What is it that makes a man want to

don-a-dress and UN whose idea was it in the first place? I have come

for a sneak peek been made but that is's dressing room. Come end!

or should I say John Lennon. I am almost there. Looking good. How

long have you been at this game, dressing up as a woman? About 40

years. Actually, 25 years. How does putting it on a dress allow you to

get away with more? I think it is because I am another character.

Don't you be laughing at love, at least I can change. John can think

something, but why he is dressed as May, he can get away with it. I

have a... UK been aware of it, as long as you are dressed as May. You

fancy me don't shoot. Any one there, looking at these Abri brought in!

One of John's cross-dressing predecessors, Jimmy Young knew no

boundaries. He was one of the first comics to confront the troubles.

How d'you know if you are a Catholic or a Protestant? He is

gags were loved by both sides of the sectarian divide. Nobody could

stand up and start sliding the other side of as he did with or

insular will. You could not stand up and do that as a guy, because

people would think that was what she believed. When you are dressed

up you will get away with it. Ironically, the Church encourage

performers to cross dress in Elizabethan times. The English

clergy because bridge laws that banished women from the stage, some

men had to take the lead female roles. The church was deeply

concerned that women did not know their place. In the theatre, that

meant that they would have been centre stage in the Elizabethan

society. Shakespeare was not the first to get his meal actors to

dress up in drag. The earliest origins of West End Theatre are in

ancient Greece and the greatest roles or all performed by men,

because women were prohibited from appearing in theatre and

participating in the do. They were almost like slaves, certainly

second class citizens, so it was effectively an all-male stage,

performing these great roles. more recent times, and the early

salad, Dame Edna and the Little Britain boys have all become a name

cross-dressers on British TV and Brendan O'Carroll's Head Mrs

Brown's boys show that so the audience had not tired of this.

is a man in a dress. I think a man wearing a dress is naturally funny.

I don't get it. A I think men who dress up as women will be hilarious.

I don't get it., on Sun, Give Me Your arm. A relocate a? Go fancy a

drink? I think Ralph was OK until you walk down Victoria Street.

Regular listeners to his radio show may think that is how he presents

it every evening. It is not a first for you Gerard? My character in

Hollyoaks that I played for five years was a cross-dresser, and it

was not, be like that, he but it was any, never having met anyone

like that, it was quite weird to play someone who was very serious

about it and it was not played for gags. The only reference that I had

growing up was Boy George and it beard towards that side of the

whole new romantic thing. You're only supposed to be in Hollyoaks

for three months, but obviously you were there for years. Are you happy

enough that you stay that long? Was it fun? They brought me up because

they wanted to drive his character and the producer was adamant that

he wanted the character in the show and Channel 4 were not sure that

would work, so they agreed to bring the end for 12 episodes on a three-

month contract and my agent says if it works, brilliant, into Manns

people have forgotten about it. I ended up staying for five years. I

think because the character was so out there and we do have so much

fun with the story lines, then make up eccentric, it stopped me from

getting bored, which is why the five years when so quickly.

returned once, and the door is open, would you be tempted to go back?

Yeah. He if they want to me and I was available, I would definitely

go because I had such a great time. It was so much fun and I owe them

so much. It was my first job in front of a camera and to get that

experience of doing that every day for five years was prices. If they

asked me and I could do it, I definitely would. It must be hard

work? Are hard as part would be getting up at 6:30am to be in make-

up, but that was outweighed by the 35 stunning girls that you work

with every day! I you don't mind getting out of bed at 5:30am then.

You went from a West Belfast to the West End and it was Kenneth Branagh

that you have to find we are acting career? Kenneth Branagh set up the

Renaissance scholarship and it amaze me, at so many people do not

know Kenneth Branagh is from Belfast, but he set up his

scholarship that pays for Northern Irish guineas to go and train as an

actor, whether or not is in England or America and I applied for it in

2000 and was lucky enough to get awarded it. It's me it everything

at college at so much easier, living away from home for the first

time. I went to Epsom for two years to study musical theatre, graduated

and went into the Abba musical, Mamma Mia, within a couple of

months. I did that for a few years, Carousel, Saturday Night Fever,

directed by Arlene Phillips, so it was fun. That was it her. To come

all that way up of course. It has been a crazy journey. It proudly

took its name from an American president the who played his part

in the Northern Ireland peace process. The design of the Clinton

Centre in Enniskillen is something of a talking how -- point in the

town. So as part of our Love it or Loathe it series we asked locals of

the see the building as a monument to appease or a monumental mistake.

I am Jeni McRae, the ex-president and Enniskillen and chamber of

Compton's and this is the centre. It was built on the bomb site and

I'm sure you remember the Remembrance Day bombing in

Enniskillen in 1987. The name was given to it from the former

President Bill Clinton and he dedicated the centre to peace and

prosperity in Ireland. This is a wonderful piece of modern art. It

was designed by a local architect from Enniskillen and you can see it

is very modern. I absolutely love it. I think it suits the town. It

is very attractive. It is very simplistic, it has straight lines

and is a very unusual shape and the Blue is to contrast with the water

beside it. It was the same old traditional building, it would not

have the same effect. It is a new building for new beginnings I have

been a resident of them has gone for 45 years. As a lover of all

buildings I have loved living in Enniskillen, in its history, its

character and its buildings are all beautiful. Until this are right

behind me. There is no character. It is not in keeping with the town.

Two this site, we had the war memorial. It is now dwarfed by this

monster! When you come up his street, your first impression it is

a has Enniskillen got a present. It is in a brown malt looking at you.

It is meant to mean peace, there is nothing of these will about Pat or

brown. Be only locals who use it are the local water rats, who are

busily colour blind. Ms Gillan the with this is losing its own culture.

He had heard the arguments for and against, can you come forward and

vote with your feet? As a victim of the Enniskillen bombing, where my

father was murdered, I think this building is disgusting. It is an

eyesore. A I've been is building it there is a great assets and a

contrast really with the older buildings they lit stir tea.

looks unfinished. It symbolises that the town is changing. It is

Making the homesick! You have gone from Hollyoaks to Shakespeare, that

is a very different challenge? was a random phone call because I

was coming to the end of my Hollyoaks contract and my agent

said, what do you want to do? I definitely wanted to get back and

do some kind of play. I said I wanted to do something far removed

from Hollyoaks. The last time I had done Shakespeare was at drama

school. I got the phone call whilst I was still filming, do you want

this role at the Globe? Shakespeare? At the Globe? The

first time I have done it. I would be mad to do it and mad to not do

it. I took the job and two weeks after I finished Hollyoaks, and was

on stage. Still on screen at the same time. Then Los Angeles and

newer? Merry Wives of Windsor, it was a massive hit. Be transferred

to Los Angeles, then a New York. This part, I thought it was going

to be three months, it was seven months. It just ran. Was there a

difference with American audiences? Yes. The thing about performing at

the Globe is its massive, it has been reconstructed in exactly the

same way as it was. It is performed without lights or set. You don't

have anything that was not around in the time of Shakespeare. You

adapt to that and then in America, we cannot see the audience and we

had lights and the set was moving. The American audience got a very

different sense of humour. When in Los Angeles on the press doubt, Tom

Hanks was there and he has this distinctive laugh and he was

laughing and I was thinking in character, that is Woody from Toy

Story! The only time in history when a Shakespearean character has

thought that! The best experience ever but the scariest thing because

it's also the thing were you think, if I forget my lines, I cannot make

it up. In any other production, you just improvise, you get around.

That's not the kind of stuff that you can forget and make-up. We will

do some more name-dropping because you have worked with Neve Campbell,

Derek Jacobi, how did you find that? Amazing. The luckiest thing

about my career is that no matter where I have worked, it is all this

with people that I have learnt so much from. And that amazing set of

actors included. They are working on Titanic with me. You watch them

working and it then becomes fairly evident how their careers have

panned out the way that they have and how they have got here. Derek

Jacobi, in his 70s, and I watched him on set, never forgetting any

lines for never having to do anything twice. And then you

remember that the reason why he is so well regarded is because he is

one of the best theatre actors we have. And he isn't used to getting

a second chance. You watch him and think, you are incredible. Those

kind of people, you just soak it all in. Thank you very much for

joining us. Best of luck with the Titanic serious. Our next story is

of an extraordinary woman who could not have done more to encourage

talent in Northern Ireland. She survived the Nazi camps of the

Holocaust before making it to Belfast, where she became an award-

winning choreographer of modern dance. Helen Lewis was barely 5 ft

tall but her impact was massive. Not even frostbitten feet would

stop her from dancing. From the age of six, Helen Lewis de there was on

the one thing she wanted to do. Dance. Born in 1916 into a cultured

Jewish family living in what was then Czechoslovakia, at age 22 she

found herself in Prague, freshly graduated from the celebrated

School of Dance and married to her new husband, Paul. It seemed to be

going well but for a girl with her background it was simply a case of

wrong place, wrong time. By summer of 1939, all of Czechoslovakia was

under Nazi occupation. Helen had just finished her dance training

and she was ready to take on the major roles in the company she was

wet but at that stage, she could not because she was Jewish and she

was not even allowed to teach. In time, she was deported. When she

was in Auschwitz, she survived two selections to the gas chambers. The

first one, she had Clones over one arm. And for some miraculous reason,

she switched her clothes to the other, thus hiding the scars on her

tummy and she was allowed through. She had survived one, how could she

survive another? On this occasion, there was a queue going towards the

panel of people making the selection and acute coming away

from them, out past. And she waited for her moment. And whenever she

saw them looking away, she stepped in to the queue that was coming

away. Helen's next destination was this concentration camp. At one

stage she was asked to dance and she said she was starting with

hunger, really cold. She did not think she had any energy, she could

not think of dancing because with all of those injuries, all of the

operations whilst in the camp, she had been told she could not dance

again but she did and she thought, were did she get that energy? She

could never understand. Helen survived the final death march by

lying in a ditch. But both her young husband and her beloved

mother died in the camp. returned to Prague and there was

absolutely nobody. But fate intervened. Harry Lewis, a former

friend from Prague who had fled to Belfast before the war, spotted her

published by the Red Cross. How retract Helen down, they fell in

love and married in proud in 1947. He brought his new bride back to

Belfast, as she described it, a faraway city in a foreign land. And

once again, dancing shipped your life. In 19 to P6, Grosvenor High

School after to choreograph a school production of the bartered

Bride. It was a very first time modern dance was seen in Northern

Ireland. Nick Bryson is a former pupil. I just imagine this huge

impact, whenever she arrived and she brought dance to Northern

Ireland as an art form. I Always remember Helen telling me, where is

where in the performance space and what is what part of the body and

high is what movement quality you move that body part with. I think

Helen brought to us from overseas, from Europe, and give them context

in Northern Ireland. Helen went on to choreograph for the Lyric

Theatre as well as many operas. In 1969 she formed the Belfast modern

Danske, which launched the careers of many professional dancers.

Passionate about her art, in 2001 she was appointed an MBE for

services to contemporary dance. Testament to the impact she had

made in Northern Ireland. nurtured and love of dance in me.

Go against the music quickly... And an ability to dance and teach.

was a huge inspiration, she gave me belief that I could go into

professional dancing. Helen passed away in 2009 at the age of 93. Even

through the darkest days, she remained committed and passionate

about what she loved most. And her legacy lives on in the country she

came to call her own. What an inspirational woman. He has just

had 60 minutes to make a contemporary sculpture out of clay.

How did you get on? The form has been made and I still have work to

do. It has to be dried out and refined. It has to be glazed and

fired again. But the form is there. We will have a look. This is what

it will look like. It is the top of your head? Partial self-portrait.

All that work, you will not do tomorrow because you are very busy?

It's a big day, and installing my biggest ever piece of work into the

FA McWilliams Gallery, 25 heads. And to be associated with this man,

this great sculpture, is magnificent. And I am part of a

contemporary exhibition along with artists from the States, Poland,

Canada, South Korea, Italy and other places. I have seen white and

red clay, but use black clay. love how it builds. I build

everything by hand. It sits what I do. And also the mood of the work,

it's quite dark and earthy. Quite brooding. Where do you get your

ideas from? It is a desire to be different, there are great people

working in ceramics but I want to do this my own way. I used spikes

and Pierce sings and in some cases, or other materials like latex. Just

to be different. It sure does and I wish you all the best. If some of

this art work has already been auctioned off, but if you still

want to get your hands on a piece, remaining pieces will be auctioned

in the year with proceeds going to Children in Need. Keep an eye on

Children in Need website... Our music guest this week is the

Mercury nominated Lisa Hannigan. Good to see you. It is a fairly

hectic time for you, promoting her second album. It's going really

well, it's great. She and my next day off his Christmas Eve. It will

be a lean Christmas at home. Your second album, that difficult second

album, was that your experience? Not really, I felt with the first

one I learnt so much and there was so much to learn that I never had

recorded in a studio before managed a band were arranged songs. There

was a lot to learn. With this one, yes, I felt like I knew enough to

enjoy it and really focus on the music. And when it came to putting

the tracks down, it took one week? Yes, and the first one was two

weeks. That's a pretty good trajectory. You really immerse

yourself in all aspects of the business, you design the covers,

you are involved in the video and they're usually quite bizarre?

I try to make them interesting. I like the old one take videos as

much as possible. It saves on editing. And shooting time. We did

one with myself in a white dress against a white background and all

of the boys off screen were playing instruments with the medium of paid.

I start off lovely and clean and by the end, I looked like this crazy

swamp monster! You look great tonight. We look forward to hearing

you. You can catch place on tour at the Mandela Hall in Belfast next

Tuesday. That's it - if you want more information about any of the

stories from tonight, check out our website... We're back next year and

if you have a story we should cover, please get in touch... For now, we

and Little Bird... Have a good # Your heart sings like a kettle.

# And your words, they boil away like steam.

# And a lie burns long while the truth bites quick.

# A heart is built for both, it seems.

# You are lonely as a church. # Despite the queuing out your door.

# I am empty as a promise no more. # When the time comes.

# And rights have been read. # I think of you often.

# I was salted by your hunger. # Now you've gone and lost your