Latest news with #NorthCircular
RTÉ News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
North Circular rocks - Luke McManus on his acclaimed Dublin documentary
Luke McManus's acclaimed feature documentary North Circular travels the length of the eponymous road exploring the history, music and streetscapes of the legendary artery that links some of Dublin's most beloved and infamous places. This journey is enriched with musical performances from local artists including John Francis Flynn, Séan Ó Túama, Eoghan O'Ceannabháin, Ian Lynch and Gemma Dunleavy. Luke introduces North Circular below - watch it now via RTÉ Player. Grangegorman was an obscure, unfashionable place when I moved to a house just off the North Circular Road 20 years ago. On my first Saturday morning in the neighbourhood, a well-dressed, sober-looking man at the door told me that a plane was going to crash into the house. "It won't happen for about two hours so you have a bit of time to get your stuff out", he assured me. As the designated time ticked closer, I felt a pang of anxiety. If I was about to die in a fireball of kerosene and fuselage wreckage, then my final reproachful thought would be "well, you were warned, and you did nothing…". That was my first encounter with the extraordinary gallery of characters that populate the North Circular Road. Listen: North Circular director Luke McManus talks to Ryan Tubridy If you start at the Wellington Monument, which anchors the NCR at its Western end, and walk the five kilometres to the Five Lamps, you pass some of the most iconic and infamous places in Ireland. From the sombre barracks of the Phoenix Park, past the old asylum of Grangegorman (dubbed Dottyville by Buck Mulligan in Ulysses), the road continues past Dalymount stadium, then between the hulking masses of Mountjoy Prison and the Mater Hospital, both institutional repositories of human suffering. Once over Dorset Street, you pass Croke Park, the tenements of Sherrard Street and Charles St, the Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street and then the dockside fortresses of finance. The idea of a documentary about the street had been knocking around in my head for many years, but lockdown gave it fresh momentum. Being restricted to 2km and then 5km of my home had an extraordinary effect. Walking and re-walking the familiar streets revealed hitherto unnoticed physical and textural details. I also realised that a walk along the North Circular is a trip through the entire social pyramid of the city: from the President to homeless beggars, and everyone in-between. This is the journey that my film North Circular makes in eight chapters. There's one for each neighbourhood, each with a different theme, as the road curves from park to dock, meeting soldiers, squatters, fire-starters, gypsy drummers, buskers, crazed football fans and addicts on the way. There have been many creatively inspiring and richly detailed documentary films from Irish directors in recent years. But filmmakers like Pat Collins, Feargal Ward, Katrina Costello, Tadhg O'Sullivan and Keith Walsh generally seemed concerned with the narratives to be found within the rural Irish landscape or the streets of small country towns. North Circular is concerned with the city and the layers that its back-alleys and street corners reveal. It's also a sort of a history of Ireland, told without archive footage or yellowed photographs, which is why we chose black-and-white for our shooting format. The film begins with the imperial relics of the Park before taking in rebellion, institutionalisation, religious dominance, addiction, despair, immigration and the coming of strangers and, finally, the emancipation of women. Did I mention that it's a musical as well? That's a whole other story…
Irish Independent
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Today's top TV and streaming picks: North Circular, 7500 and Wednesday
Nationwide RTÉ One, 7pm To mark the 250th anniversary of his birth, the programme profiles Daniel O'Connell, the man known as 'the Liberator'. Reporters Brian Hurley and John Kilraine trace his early years and his political career in both Ireland and England. MasterChef BBC One, 8pm Despite the controversy surrounding now-fired presenters John Torode and Gregg Wallace, the culinary contest returns with a new batch of competitors trying to prove they have what it takes to make it as a professional chef in a top restaurant. North Circular RTÉ One, 9.35pm Award-winning programme that combines documentary with musical performances to celebrate Dublin's North Circular Road. Various local characters share their stories, while John Francis Flynn, Eoghan O'Ceannabháin and Séan Ó Túama are among the performers. Air India Crash: What Went Wrong? Channel 4, 10pm On June 12, Air India Flight 171 crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad Airport during what should have been a routine journey to London. This documentary's makers investigate what might have caused the tragedy. 7500 RTÉ2, 9pm High-flying drama originally available on streaming giant Amazon Prime. A pilot forms an unlikely bond with one of the terrorists who has taken over his plane while fighting to save the lives of everyone on board. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Omid Memar head the cast. Wednesday Netflix, streaming now Of course, it's releasing on a Wednesday. Would a Wednesday in late September/early October better suit the eerie vibe? Absolutely. But humanity is always chasing the next season – observe Starbucks dropping its Pumpkin Spice this month (August 26, to be exact). Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) returns to roam the halls of Nevermore Academy, where new horrors and teen woes await. With her deadpan delivery, she dives into another school year of ghoulish japes, juggling family, foes and supernatural mayhem. Tim Burton steers the twisted ship into season two, where a new mystery unfolds, pushing Wednesday into even darker territory (put it this way, it's not for the early tweens). Familiar faces Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán reprise their roles, while new blood includes Steve Buscemi, Billie Piper, Evie Templeton and Noah Taylor, with bonus guest appearances from Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Lumley and Thandiwe Newton. Platonic AppleTV+, streaming now More of besties Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne being various forms of 'platonic'. King of The Hill Disney+, streaming now Between this and the return of South Park, it's 1997 all over again (if only). Hank and Peggy return to Arlen after building their retirement fund in Saudi Arabia (peddling propane, obvs), while Bobby now lives it up in Dallas as a chef. For more grown-up animation, there's also Eyes of Wakanda. Hunting The Yorkshire Ripper Prime Video, streaming now Not to be confused with Jack the Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe shared a taste for misdirection and was ultimately facilitated by a Wearside Jack, whose notes and tapes led the police astray back in the 1970s. Fifty years later, retired detective Chris Gregg assembles a cold case team to hunt the impersonator who kept Sutcliffe's crimes alive. Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 Netflix, streaming now Frankly, I don't mind that they're starting to get repetitive; it's still appointment viewing every week in Chez McGinley. In 2019, a joke Facebook event to 'storm Area 51' went viral, drawing millions and triggering warnings from US authorities. Indeed, it does sound exceedingly similar to last month's Real Project X instalment, but I'm still here for it. Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes Netflix, streaming now 'Tis the turn of David Berkowitz's police tapes to get an airing. This chilling docuseries unpacks the Son of Sam killings, exposing Berkowitz's disturbing mindset he unleashed on 1970s NYC. Brady and the Blues Prime Video, streaming now Prime appears to be chasing some of that Welcome to Wrexham magic with a new sports docuseries featuring NFL icon Tom Brady. Mind you, this could be entirely different given Brady, at 3.3pc, is very much a minority stakeholder in Birmingham City FC. Perfect Match Netflix, streaming now Netflix's biggest reality stars – from Love Is Blind to Too Hot To Handle – head to paradise to search for love (or more followers) in a strategic dating showdown. So, like Battle Camp but with more bikinis. For more 'unscripted' drama, WWE: Unreal takes fans inside the writer's room for a look at the chaos behind the curtain. Leanne Netflix, streaming now Leanne Morgan's world flips when her husband leaves after 33 years. Menopausal and newly single, she leans on her family – especially her fierce sister Carol (Kristen Johnston) – to tackle this next chapter with Southern grit and lashings of 'jello salad'. Chuck Lorre is involved, so it can't be too bad.
Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Barry Fantoni obituary: Private Eye stalwart for half a century
So. Farewell then, Barry, as EJ Thribb might have written. Cartoonist, caricaturist, painter, broadcaster, jazz musician, actor, playwright and crime novelist, Barry Fantoni was all of those but above all he was a vital and indispensable part of the fabric of Private Eye for half a century. His satirical cartoons wickedly mocked the idiocies of modern life; he wrote the bubble captions for some of the magazine's most memorable covers and created a disproportionate number of its long-running trademark features and characters. It was Fantoni who, with Richard Ingrams, wrote the spoof Mills and Boon romances by Sylvie Krin, often about the love tangles of the royal family. He was also the devoted chronicler of the Neasden Football Club of the North Circular Relegation League
