Something for the Weekend – Stephen Murphy's Cultural Picks

As part of Shine, airing on RTÉ One on Saturday 29 August, poet Stephen Murphy will perform a specially commissioned spoken word piece entitled The Language of the Birds.

Shine is a magical hour of music and words filmed at the Iveagh Gardens, the National Concert Hall and at RTÉ over a couple of summer days, featuring stunning performances from a collection of our most celebrated artists and emerging talent. Stephen joins a bill that includes Villagers, The RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Denise Chaila, Dermot Kennedy, west Kerry concertina player Cormac Begley, and many more.

We asked Stephen for his choice cultural picks...

FILM

I went back to Monty Python and the Holy Grail the other day, and still laughed as much as I did when I saw it for the first time years ago. From the surreality of the opening credits to The Black Knight, the coconuts, the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch and everything in between, I think it's probably the greatest comedy ever written, at a time when we’ve rarely been more in need of a good laugh. Also, all the Monty Python films are on Netflix, so if you’re looking for something to cheer you up, it’s a great place to start!

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BOOK

A Goat’s Song by Dermot Healy. I can’t begin to give it a fitting synopsis here, other than to say that it’s an incredible novel, a masterpiece by a genuine literary genius at the top of his game. I met Dermot when I was around 15, when I landed back home to discover him in the living room with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. I'd no idea who he was, but I knew he was important because no one smoked in the house, and my parents didn’t really drink at all, never mind whiskey before lunch. That day he taught me the importance of hope in art, and it’s a lesson that's never left me.

MUSIC

Obviously it’s dependent on the mood and the time and space, but I'm going to go with my current listening here, which is Eulogy for Evolution by Ólafur Arnalds. It’s mind-blowing to think that Ólafur was just 19 when he wrote it, but I’d love the opportunity to sit our planet down for the 40 minutes it takes to listen to it. The world would be a better place for us all to live in because of it.

ART

I tend to lean a lot more towards renaissance art than contemporary for whatever reason, but if there’s one contemporary artist that consistently astounds me it’s Rita Duffy, and especially her political work around The Troubles. I’d love the chance to spend a couple of weeks in Paris just so I could spend at least half that time roaming around the Louvre, and to get back to Venice to spend more time in the company of Tintoretto, an artist whose work left a deep impression on me many years ago.

GIG

The last gig I was at was in the Olympia back in January, when I was blessed with the opportunity to open for David Keenan and the tribe of beautiful souls that accompanied him on stage. I’d never been in the Olympia before, so for my first time there to be walking out on stage was a magical experience and something I’ll never forget. I didn’t know it at the time, but two days later I’d be nailed to the bed with fevers, two weeks later I’d be in hospital, and over two months after that I’d finally get back out in to a world where the idea of gigs felt like a different reality. There’s a lesson there somewhere; to cherish the good times for what they are ’cause none of us ever really know what’s around the corner, but the flip-side of that is that those good times will hopefully come full circle again soon, and as artists we’ll be able to get back to doing what we do best.

Some of my earliest memories are of watching the snooker as a young fella with my dad, and it’s something that’s stayed with me in to adulthood. I might have watched too much of the World Championships when they were on a couple of weeks ago, but there’s something deeply meditative about the game that I love sitting down and losing myself in, and in terms of tension and drama there’s very little that comes close. It’s a funny one, I haven’t the patience to sit down and watch whatever the latest series might be, but yet I wouldn’t think twice about spending hours every day watching the snooker if it’s on.

TECH

I refill my pen from an inkwell that sits on a desk that looks like it’s straight out of the 19th century, so I’m possibly the least qualified person to talk about tech. I don’t do the smartphone thing, not because I’m trying to be a Luddite, but more so because I feel the rush to stay connected to the online world eats into the time I have to actually get anything done in the world around me. Most people are probably grand with it, and good luck to them, but I know myself well enough to know that something that makes calls and sends text messages is the right amount of tech that I need.

THE NEXT BIG THING...

All these things are often dependent on the right breaks coming at the right time, but if the stars align and the world opens back up again then there’s little to stop the aforementioned David Keenan from being a superstar. He already has more of a back-catalogue than many a troubadour amassed in a lifetime, and having toured with him around the island, the energy that’s cultivated at those live shows is a very rare and precious gift. Admittedly he’s already well on the way, but deservedly so.

Shine, RTÉ One, Saturday 29 August - find out more here.

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