Article Category: Behind the Scenes

MARIAN KEYES’S MAKE-UP

March 7, 2019
THIS MONTH the long list for the first Comedy Women In Print (CWIP) prize is announced, with our own Marian Keyes in situ on... Read more »

BISI BLOCKED

March 7, 2019
SPARE A thought for playwright Bisi Adigun. The Supreme Court has found that the long-running litigation against his former legal eagles failed to reach... Read more »

CONOR BARRY’S ‘HOLE IN THE GROUND’

March 7, 2019
IRISH HORROR films and psychological thrillers have not fared well at the box office. Recent excursions The Lodgers and The Cellar Door hardly registered... Read more »

NEIL MURRAY’S TACTICS

February 21, 2019
ALMOST A month after the Abbey Theatre found itself the star of yet another offstage drama, courtesy of a critical letter signed by hundreds... Read more »

REGIME CHANGE ON MERRION SQUARE

February 21, 2019
WATCH OUT for an advert seeking to fill vacancies in the Arts Council. Given that the most important seat to be filled on Merrion... Read more »

TAXMAN STARS IN ARTHOUSE DRAMA

February 21, 2019
JUST WHEN the dust seemed to have settled on Galway’s dalliance with ‘cultural cinema’ – the bijou Pálás art house having been folded at... Read more »

JOSEPHA MADIGAN’S BOTCHED BURSARIES

February 7, 2019
FANS OF The Phoenix will not have been surprised to hear about the sudden brake applied to the €20,000-a-pop “Markievicz bursaries” announced last November... Read more »

DEIRDRE DONAGHY’S PLOT SPOILER

February 7, 2019
THE OIREACHTAS Budgetary Oversight Committee had a recent session on tax expenditures (wake up down the back! – Ed), which uncovered some of the... Read more »

ROBERT BALLAGH’S ART PROBLEM

January 24, 2019
THE OUTBREAK of tut-tutting over Robert Ballagh’s complaint about the lack of Irish players at the top of many cultural institutions here was utterly... Read more »

ANN MULROONEY’S SUCCESSOR

January 24, 2019
THE HUNT is under way for a new chief executive/artistic director for the VISUAL contemporary arts centre in Carlow, which continues to struggle financially.... Read more »

PASS THE FERRERO ROCHER

January 10, 2019
THE APPOINTMENT this week of an Irish five-a-side squad of “cultural ambassadors” marks the latest wheeze in the much-hyped objective of “doubling Ireland’s footprint... Read more »

JOSEPHA MADIGAN’S PRESSIE

January 10, 2019
’TWAS BUT a week before Christmas and all were asleep when Josepha Madigan bestowed gifts to the tune of U200m to Annie Doona’s Screen... Read more »

EUGENE DOWNES’S NEXT JOB?

January 10, 2019
GOLDHAWK was interested to see an advert for the new role of cultural director at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in... Read more »

BUSY TIMES AT ANNAGH-MAKERRIG

December 13, 2018
EARLIER THIS year, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan spent a week at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (TGC) artists’ retreat to... Read more »

CURTIN CALL AT THE ABBEY

December 13, 2018
WHILE THE Abbey Theatre’s imported Christmas show, Come From Away, has attracted lots of pre-opening night publicity, one of the board members has decided... Read more »

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN

December 13, 2018
THE PERIOD from mid-November through to mid-January is traditionally a nervy time for idle freelance workers in the film and TV business. There’s little... Read more »

JOSEPHA MADIGAN’S BIASED BURSARIES

November 29, 2018
NOT SURPRISINGLY, there was little (ie no) outcry after Josepha Madigan unveiled the government’s latest gender-based culture wheeze, which takes the form of the... Read more »

THE ABBEY’S NEW NUMBER CRUNCHER

November 29, 2018
CULTURE MINISTER Josepha Madigan has been busy making appointments to the boards of some national cultural institutions. One of these is accountant Peter Lowry,... Read more »

SELINA CARTMELL VS GRAHAM McLAREN

November 29, 2018
IT’S THE time of year when our two biggest institutions announce winter and spring programmes – ones that will leave audiences and, more importantly,... Read more »

NATIONAL THEATRE’S US IMPORT

November 1, 2018
FANS OF Irish theatre got a treat this week when RTÉ broadcast a show devoted to life inside the Abbey Theatre, where the director... Read more »

SIÚN NÍ RAGHALLAIGH’S GOOD NEWS

November 1, 2018
FANS OF Goldhawk will not have been surprised by the inclusion in Pascal Donohoe’s Finance Bill of 10 pages of refinements to the operations... Read more »

MEL GIBSON’S TAXING ISSUE

October 18, 2018
THE MOVIE suits don’t generally wash their dirty linen in public, which is why Mel Gibson’s spat with Voltage Pictures – producers of the... Read more »

SLOWLY DOES IT AT IMMA

October 18, 2018
THERE IS still no sign of white smoke at Kilmainham, where they are waiting for a new director to replace the long-departed Sarah Glennie.... Read more »

JOSEPHA MADIGAN’S CREATIVE SPENDING

October 18, 2018
THE TENSIONS between the Arts Council and the Department of Culture over the emergence of Creative Ireland (CI) are well known. The new body... Read more »

AUDITIONING FOR THE GATE

October 4, 2018
THERE HAS been lots of good news for the Gate Theatre lately, putting quite a nice gloss on Selina Cartmell’s tenure on Parnell Square... Read more »

NEW FACES AT THE CHESTER BEATTY

October 4, 2018
THERE HAS been some recent (and overdue) activity on the board of the Chester Beatty Library, where some new faces are joining Dermot Desmond... Read more »

HELEN BOYLE’S FUNDING BOOST

October 4, 2018
AS MICK Hannigan and Una Feely prepare to fire up their IndieCork film and music festival, it seems that relations between their erstwhile employer... Read more »

PATRICK SUTTON’S CORE PROBLEM

September 20, 2018
THERE WAS some good news for Smock Alley theatre in Temple Bar this year when the Arts Council upped its grant, but the overall... Read more »

SCRIPT REWRITE AT THE ITFAs

September 20, 2018
THE LUVVIES of the film and TV business are girding their loins for the hardest part of their job – aggressive self-promotion for the... Read more »