Not a Merc. in sight...

Mark Lappin

Producer/Director - Prime Time

Getting up on a Monday morning can be hard at the best of times - even more so when it has to be done at 5am in order to start work in Cork by nine. But somehow, with just a few hours' sleep due to an overactive imagination and a brain that wanted to start filming sequences before I did, I managed it. The whole concept of the report I was on my way to film was that Miriam would go on a journey around the Rebel County to find out the innermost thoughts and feelings of the people of Cork ahead of what will undoubtedly be the most interesting local elections of recent times. And while I'd managed to get myself out at such an early hour, unfortunately, I'd failed to remember one crucial thing - the suit bag with all my shirts for the week. So one u-turn and a sneaky nap later, we were in Cork and ready to roll.

The first port of call was City Hall where we met Councillor Denis Cregan - a man who'd been at the helm of local politics for the past thirty years and who, that very evening, was due to attend his last council meeting before he was due to retire. A perfect candidate then for an explanation of how local government works and what it means. We all know Miriam has a real knack of getting answers to tough questions - usually in a studio setting on Prime Time. What I bet you didn't know (and frankly nor did I) was that she is equally as capable of getting her interviewees to sing! This, she did, absolutely shamelessly and with the first interview and an entire song in the bag (albeit off camera), I knew this was going to be an interesting week and that there'd be many more amusing moments to come.

Amusing moments were indeed aplenty in an otherwise extremely hectic week. Miriam had obviously come to Cork with the sole aim of talking to people about their views on local government ahead of the June 5th elections. Did they care at all?, How were they likely to vote? And what, if anything, would be influencing their decision? Miriam had a pre-arranged engagement in Dublin on the Monday afternoon and she also had to be in Dublin to present Prime Time on the Tuesday and Thursday so behind the scenes, there was a lot of planning to coordinate not only interviews but journeys to and from train stations. Because there was such a lot to fit in in a short space of time, Miriam's filming schedule had to be quite regimented. I had done the calculations on who she would talk to, when, and for who long and it was so tight that I even had one interview slotted in on the taxi journey from one interview to the next. What I hadn't included in my 'well-thought-out' plan was that while Miriam would want to speak to people about their views on politics, they too would want to speak to her about a multitude of other things - from her height to her figure, to her children to The Late Late. So if I thought the schedule was going to be tight when we started, it would get even tighter by the end.

As part of the process of making the Prime Time report, we had to film sequences of Miriam walking around in various locations as part of her journey. As a Producer/Director, I always try to ensure that such sequences look as normal as possible - that they don't look contrived or staged - but evidently, we were going to draw some attention in trying to film these parts which in the end often had to be done before people had a chance to gather. Both off-camera and at moments, on it, there were some interventions and reactions which needless to say were hilarious but will fail to make the final cut - like the woman who shrieked in absolute disbelief when she turned the corner in her local supermarket and bumped into Miriam to another shopper who exclaimed "Is it really you?" to the kind man who ran past at break-neck speed and handed Miriam a bag of fish from his stall.

One evening, as we got out of the car to film an interview with a candidate, a young boy spotted Miriam and rather excitedly yelled out to his pal "Look, it's yer one from Prime Time!". Two things struck me about this. Firstly, the fact that these kids, who must have been no more than 11 or 12, actually watched 'Prime Time' and secondly, the inextricable link between Miriam and the show. I was most impressed that they even knew what Prime Time was. What seemed to impress most of the people we met was also something quite simple - the fact that Miriam had time for them. This said a lot because despite the manic filming schedule of which they were all, blissfully, unaware, she did have time for them - and their faces said it all. From the woman who blushed when Miriam complimented her hair to another who remarked to me "She [Miriam] was so lovely and normal. I was honestly expecting her to turn up in a big Merc and she just jumped out of that one!". 'That one', was referring our crew car driven by camera man Alex which, may I add, was nonetheless very comfortable despite not being a Merc! But, I knew what she meant and had a silent chuckle.

The real 'glamour' of television was I think summed up in our last interview of the week. The final report, which will air on Thursday, will include a clip from a very wet candidate standing talking about the campaign, it would seem quite happily, in an extraordinarily heavy downpour. What the viewer won't see is the typical wide shot on this sequence which shows the setting. The reason? We would all look like something out of a comedy! Miriam was holding an umbrella over the interviewee, I was squashed behind holding an umbrella over her while someone else was holding an umbrella over camera man Alex. Five minutes later, the sun was out, the rain had stopped and Miriam was gone - racing through the streets of Cork city to get the train back to present that night's Prime Time - the people of Cork's thoughts in the bag and my heart in my shoes. Luckily, she made it with seconds to spare.