Charting the career of Bob Quinn

TG4 began broadcasting a series of filmmaker Bob Quinn’s works this week, ranging from his documentaries Why Don’t They Shoot People?, which he made for RTÉ in 1966, the more recent Vox Humana (Notes for a small opera) on the music of the Galway Baroque Singers and Damhsa an Deoraí (The Emigrant Dance) to part one of his four-part North African Odyssey Antlantean, which sees Quinn travelling to Celtic countries and North Africa to discover the origins of Conamara sean-nós singing. Fiction films to be shown include The Family, a disturbing film about a Donegal household and Poitín, a comedy on the evils of moonshine.
Born in Dublin, Bob Quinn worked as a television producer with RTÉ before moving to Connemara in 1969 and founding film and video company Cinegael with Seosamh Ó Cuaig and Toni Cristofides. Each screening of Bob Quinn @ 75 will be preceded by an interview with Quinn, conducted by Irish poet and writer Theo Dorgan.
The series opened on Tuesday with Fág an Bealach followed by Why Don’t They Shoot People? which looks at the difficulties a wheelchair-user has to endure, while navigating their way through each day. Made in 1973 in Connemara, Fág and Bealach focused on Coláiste Ros Muc where a military ethos is inspired by the practice of military formations and parades.
The Bob Quinn productions will continue to show on Tuesday evenings on TG4 at 9.35pm, finishing on December 20.
Continuing on the TG4 line of thought, although it screened a couple of months ago, Stephen Fry’s venture into the Irish language gets the English treatment this weekend. For part of his BBC series Planet Word, which focuses on minority languages, Fry travelled to Spiddal to uncover more about the role of Irish in today’s society and filmed a cameo for hit soap Ros ns Rún while there. The episode aired back in March, with Fry playing a tourist lost in the area, stopping in to ask for directions in Tigh Thaidhg. Publican Tadhg and permanent bar-stool resident Séamus think they’ll have a bit of fun with him and get him to stand them a couple of whiskeys from the top shelf but having mastered a cúpla focail, it’s Fry who out-manoeuvres the lads and leaves Seamus with a sizable bill. The premise for his role was dodgy enough but Fry’s command of the few words uttered was brilliant. So having seen the end result in front of the camera, it’s now time to see what went on behind the scenes this Sunday on BBC2 in Fry’s Planet Word.
The Irish element aside, the five-part series, which began last Sunday, is a strangely put-together piece of television. If the charismatic Fry was not at the helm, it would have been a complete shambles. The whole thing moved so fast, it was impossible to draw any conclusions on the languages or information offered – even the meeting with author of The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker, lasted about a minute and a half with Fry just about getting two questions fired off.  Last Sunday, he travelled to Kenya to mingle with the Turkanas, pastoral nomads whose language has rules similar to English. More similarly, the children start chattering ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ around the age of two – nothing unusual there you might say and you’re right, there was nothing out of the ordinary with it.
Continuing his whirlwind tour, Fry travelled to Leipzig to find out from assorted linguists why chimps can’t talk. Let’s hope this weekend’s offering is more coherent.
There are a number of high-profile US shows about to hit our screens this side of the pond but one starting this Thursday on Sky Living is looking like it could be a standout effort. It’s been a while since Sarah Michelle Geller last graced the small screen in the excellent Buffy The Vampire Slayer but she looks to be returning with a winner in Ringer, playing twins Bridget and Siobháin.
Bridget is six months back on the wagon and trying to get her life on track again when she happens to witness a particularly nasty murder. While the FBI offer protection, Bridget decides to take matters into her own hands and flees to New York and a reconciliation with sister, Siobháin, who seems to be living the high life with perfect house, husband and friends in tow. In an unlikely twist and with the rather evil Siobháin having conveniently forgotten to ever mention to her nearest and dearest that she has a twin sister, Bridget ends up taking over her seemingly perfect life. However, all is not what it seems and she may have been better off in the witness protection programme.
The show offers audiences a little film noir for the autumn layering mystery on top of mystery to make a very complicated sandwich for the petite blonde. Here’s hoping it lives up to the hype.
Elsewhere, Ashton is a hit it would appear. Of course, I’m talking about Demi Moore’s significant other in his debut as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on US comedy Two And A Half Men. The first episode of season nine aired in the US last Monday week and smashed Comedy Central viewing records with over a million people tuning in. Because of this, channel bosses have decided to air the show here earlier than scheduled, airing this Monday. So we will finally be able to find out how internet billionaire Walden Schmidt winds up in Charlie’s Malibu beach-house.