Rome

GuardianTodayInFocus

Zoë’s first bed was a drawer. It is still lying there, beside her parent’s bed, untouched and rotting. It’s been lying there, discarded, for her entire life. She is 34.

Zoë takes her two sisters and her parents back to the cottage, near Kiltyclogher, Co. Leitrim, where they all lived in the late 1970s. Her parents still own the cottage, but have never bothered to go back to collect their belongings in half a lifetime.

Zoë grew up knowing all about life in the cottage often but has never been back. She has never even seen a photograph of it and can only imagine what life must have been like in a stone cottage with no electricity and no water. After they left, her parents spent many years moving around, mainly for work, but have lived only 35 miles away from the cottage for the past 6 years.

As Zoë and her family travel back to the cottage they each consider what the cottage meant to them and why they’ve never bothered to return. They sift through the stuff that they once owned in the deserted cottage they reflect on what it was like to live there and what happened to all those years since they closed the door and walked away.

Produced and narrated by Zoë Comyns for Documentary on One
Production Supervision by Sarah Blake

Seen From A Distance

Stirrings Still - Eimear McBride on Samuel Beckett

Finalist for AIB Award 2017

This week on Inside Culture we visit Los Angeles to spend time with some of its dreamers.

Fionn will be talking to people who've tried to make it in Hollywood: from those who've fallen on the boulevard of broken dreams to those who got the dream and didn't want it. We speak to Irish actors Audrey Hamilton and Adam Fergus who are pursuing their acting career; Penelope Spheeris (Wayne's World); TV producer and collector Phil Savenick and even cross paths with Happy Man from Pretty Woman to find out if he got his dream in the end.

There is occasional use of strong language in this episode.

LA Dreams - Inside Culture

Another Blooming Day’ won the 2009 PPI Award for Best Drama (Main Irish Award for Radio)

The 40-minute radio drama is set on Bloomsday in a Dublin Market. Annabelle has left her Joyce-mad husband enjoying the celebrations in O’Connell St, whilst she must spend another day on her stall where she sells old postcards, coins and books. She passes the day reminiscing on her marriage and life and escaping into a fantastical world of the coins and postcards that she sells.

Her reveries become more fraught and her world unravels when she reads through a series of postcards that reveal the realities of her own life…

Annabelle: Ruth McCabe

Roddy: Eamon Hunt

Sound Design – Tinpot Productions

Another Blooming Day

Zoë Comyns explores the legacy of Frankenstein 200 years after the book was published.  In the age of Artificial Intelligence Mary Shelley's novel has a lot to teach us about the ethics and responsibilities of scientists and the rights of their creations. 

Zoë has downloaded her own 21st century digital monster (an AI app that she is chatting to).  But is it as menacing as the Mary Shelley's monster rampaging across the centuries.   

Guests include Sir Christopher Frayling, Fiona Sampson, Kathryn Harkup, Michael West and Darryl Jones.

Frankenstein in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Join RTÉ Radio 1 for a celebration of women in Ireland through readings and music. Presented by Sinéad Gleeson.

Nollaig na mBan is Women’s Christmas and all over the country women will hold parties and celebrate with their friends, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and aunts.

RTÉ Radio 1 will lead this celebration with a special recording on 5th January 2020. Hosted by writer and broadcaster Sinéad Gleeson, this event brings together a stellar group of women in Ireland for short readings and performances from Irish women’s literature, plays, poetry, letters, and music.

With Mary McAleese, Marina Carr, Marian Keyes, Tara Flynn, Eleanor McEvoy, Lisa O’Neill, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Sarah Breen, Emer McLysaght, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Amy Conroy, Joanne O’Riordan, Aoife Martin, Landless, Elaine Feeney, Alison Spittle, and Derbhle Crotty.

This event is being recorded for broadcast RTÉ Radio 1.

This production is funded by RTÉ Radio 1 and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound and Vision scheme.

Production Manager Regan Hutchins
Producer Zoë Comyns

Nollaig na mBan from the Abbey Theatre 2020

I run an Independent Production Company www.newnormalculture.com We've made hundreds of hours of great radio for RTE Radio 1, Newstalk and are currently working on programmes for Lyric FM, BBC World Service and RTE.

There's days and days more listening over at https://soundcloud.com/thebookshow and https://soundcloud.com/insideculture

New Normal Culture