Broadcast on 13th June 2016
This week on Inside Culture we talk to Chief Executive of TENI, Bronan Giambrone and TENI board member, Peter Dunne about issues facing trans people as the trans community gathers to celebrate TransFusion – a week-long Trans Pride Festival in Dublin. Since the passing of the Gender Recognition Act in 2015 the debate has moved on to areas such as segregated spaces, non binary identities and representation of trans youth.
The north inner city ‘village’ of Phibsborough is an area that has seen a lot of change in recent years and is soon set to see much more. The community arts festival Phizzfest has done much to galvanise local artists and activists to seek change to the built environment. Artist Dorothy Smith and architect Ralph Bingham have both devised projects looking at ways of improving day to day living there. Regan Hutchins gets a guided tour.
In 2015 director and writer Neasa Hardiman (Happy Valley, Fair City, Tracy Beaker Returns) set up a major initiative called Big Stories on the Small Screen – to encourage Irish writers, producers and directors to engage with long form screen writing for drama. She tells us about the project and how changes in recent years (such as the enormous popularity of Danish crime series) has led to the emergence of exciting new possibilities for writers – something she’s keen for Irish talent to harness.
Tom Abrams is a screenwriter and director and a professor of screenwriting. David Isaacs has written and produced for such TV show as MASH, Cheers, Frasier, The Simpsons and Madmen amongst many others. They join Fionn to discuss their work, making artistic work that’s also a commercial success and writing for Mad Men.
To celebrate the birthday of the poet W.B. Yeats, we hear one of his poems set to music by none other than James Joyce. Singers Darina Gallagher and Sinéad Murphy perform a version of ‘Who Will Go With Fergus’. Dublin celebrates the life and work of James Joyce on every Bloomsday and we hear how Joyce was influenced by Yeats’ poetry.
