Aedín Gormley joined RTÉ lyric fm when the station was founded in 1999.
Presenter of the hugely popular Movies and Musicals (Saturday 1-4pm), Aedín features a broad range of soundtracks from early classics to contemporary scores as well as hit songs from the world of musicals. She has interviewed many famous names from Julie Andrews to John Barry to Mark Hamill.
Aedín also presents Sunday Matinée (Sunday 1-4pm) featuring live concert performances and treasured favourites - the perfect accompaniment for your Sunday afternoon...
FILM
It’s time to head west to the Galway Film Fleadh (10- 15thJuly) which continues until Sunday with a jam packed programme. I am particularly looking forward to Metal Heart which sees actor and photographer Hugh O’Conor make his directorial debut with a script by Paul Murray. The cast includes Jordanne Jones, Leah McNamara and Moe Dunford.
Also worth checking out in Galway has to be the 30 one-minute films that have been selected from both experienced and first-time filmmakers, with all genres covered, including comedy, drama, documentary, art-house and animation, with cash awards for the winning films. Can a great story can be told in just one minute?!
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MUSIC
A new soundtrack by Michael Giacchino is always an exciting prospect. He, for me is one of the most talented contemporary film score composers out there. For the original score for Pixar's The Incredibles, he channeled his inner Bond to create a wonderfully jazzy, brassy action fun score. When I interviewed Giacchino last year, I suggested to him that he should score the next Bond film. He felt that he actually had that box ticked with his work on The Incredibles and was about to finish scoring the sequel which he was equally enthusiastic about. His Incredibles 2 soundtrack does not disappoint. It is filled with big action, with that 1960’s spy feel to it and although we are in familiar territory, Giacchino has really upped the punchy brass and percussion for the sequel.
BOOKS
I seem to be in the mood for crime thrillers at the moment. The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn was the perfect page turner for my recent holidays. It has a Hitchcock feel to it, in particular Rear Window, and I quite liked that the central character has a love of old black and white films. It is no surprise that the film rights have been snapped up and that Amy Adams has been cast as the lead. I am now about fifty pages into Liz Nugent’s Skin Deep. I really enjoyed her first two books Unraveling Oliver and Lying in Wait and this appears to be another gem of a read from this fine Irish writer.
THEATRE
The Snapper at The Gate..just go and see it, you won’t be disappointed. There seems to be very little ‘laugh out loud’ comedy on the stage at the moment, and Roddy Doyle’s own adaptation of his novel is really hilarious with, of course, some beautifully poignant moments too. Simon Delaney has to be singled out in a very impressive cast. He was set a tough challenge to play a role that we all associate with Colm Meaney from the film, but he is brilliant, with perfect comic timing as the audience waits for him to utter the many iconic lines.
TELEVISION
The two series I have been watching have just come to an end. The second season of The Handmaids Tale was as strong and even more disturbing than the first with Elizabeth Moss so impressive in the lead role. I also enjoyed the second season of This is Us, a little cheesy in spots but great story-telling with clever use of flashbacks and some really endearing performances, in particular from Sterling K. Brown as Randall. The record button is now set for the new BBC reimagining of the iconic Australian novel Picnic at Hanging Rock. This adaptation starring Natalie Dormer will set out to find the answers to what really happened...
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GIG
I can generally hear the Iveagh Gardens gigs from my Dublin 8 abode, which is handy, but it’s not the same as being there of course and I heard great things about Alanis Morissette last week. I have no gigs booked this week, but I will be going to see the musical Wicked at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre for the second time. (Hoping that the person sitting next to me won’t decide to sing along..this tends to happen to me).
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ART
It turns out that art can work on the radio. Every Tuesday on Niall Carroll’s Classical Daytime on RTÉ Lyric fm, critic Cristín Leach talks us through a different artwork on Through the Canvas (NB: listen to an episode above). Cristín, with producer Diarmuid McIntyre, really bring the piece of art in question to life for the listener outside of a gallery setting. The series asks what happens if, instead of going to the places an artwork takes you in your head as it hangs on the wall, you take the image and those thoughts with you into the real world and talk about it there?
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RADIO
I will be listening back to the RTÉ Radio 1 documentary White Noise produced by Orla Higgins & Kevin Brew (NB: listen to it above) that investigates the mysterious world of people who suffer from tinnitus and the impact it has on their lives. Tinnitus, currently an incurable condition, is the experience of hearing sounds in the brain that don’t have an external source.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
The launch this week of ‘Gender Equality in Practice in Irish Theatre’ was great to see. The 10 theatre companies involved in the working group have demonstrated the power of collaboration within the Cultural sector in Ireland. This has come as a result of #WakingTheFeminists which drew international attention to the gender inequality that then existed within Irish theatre. Looking at two productions I will be seeing in the Autumn, this box is ticked. Hamlet at ‘The Gate’ starring Ruth Negga in the title role, and Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company in The Gielgud Theatre in London. In the latter, the lead role of Bobby (now Bobbi) will be played for the first time by a female (Rosalie Craig). Sondheim himself has been involved in the development process of this alternate take on his musical. In an interview earlier this year, the composer said, "If you’ve got somebody as distinguished and inventive and good as Marianne Elliott, and she says, ‘I would love to do Company with a female central character,’ what is there to lose? It can only make the play either interesting or, if you dislike it…dislikable. So I’m always open."
