Over the past three decades, Emma Donohue has blazed a trail as one of the most prominent Irish writers of the modern age, from notable early works like Stir Fry (1994), Hood (1995) and Slammerkin (2000) to the global success of Room (2010), adapted by the author for Lenny Abrahamson's Oscar-winning film. Later this month, a screening of the film with a live score performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra comes to the National Concert Hall, Dublin.
In the author's own words, her new novel Haven (2022) is 'an adventure story about the first three people to set foot on the island now known as Skellig Michael, around the year 600: a scholar-priest called Artt who has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind and find an isolated spot to found a monastery, and young Trian and old Cormac who agree to follow him into the unknown'.
Donoghue talks to Brendan O'Connor about Haven below...
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To celebrate the publication of Haven, we asked Emma for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
Petite Maman by Céline Sciamma is a short, perfect film about a girl and her mother, and I won't say another word in case I spoil it. Sciamma has an astonishing youthful confidence, as shown in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and she doesn’t feel any obligation to include traditional conflicts and plot points.
MUSIC
As I swim laps, I’ve been listening to a lot of Sondheim soundtracks since the great man’s death last year, and particularly enjoying the dark zest of Sweeney Todd. His lyrics are the wittiest in the game; the line about the starving cow from Into The Woods, 'her withers wither with her’, makes me laugh out loud and swallow water.
BOOK
To my great delight, my eldest brother, diplomat David Donoghue, is publishing a memoir of his behind-the-scenes involvement in the Northern Irish peace process, One Good Day (out Sept 15 from Gill & Macmillan). It’s a pageturner, and its study of the nuts and bolts of making the Good Friday Agreement is all the more relevant given the recent threats to stability posed by Brexit.
THEATRE
The Pulitzer- and Tony-prizewinning musical A Strange Loop, which I saw on Broadway recently, is about a black, gay, theatre usher who’s writing a musical about a black, gay, theatre usher. This is a deeply clever and moving meta-story about which lives get to be the subjects of musical theatre.
TV
The Dropout is a riveting miniseries about a medical scam. Like Inventing Anna, it’s focused on one odd, charismatic, enigmatic young woman, but I found it more interesting because it captures the madness of techno-utopianism in the early 2000s.
GIG
I just saw a rising cello star, Yanis Boudris, play Bach’s Cello Suites in the tiny church of St Ephrem in Paris, and it was deeply moving. I suppose it was the combination of ancient music and architecture with the deft energy of such a young performer.
ART
I haven’t been to many exhibitions recently so I really appreciate an espresso shot of art in my morning via @womensart1 on Twitter; you never know what you’re going to get but it’s usually surprising and beautiful.
'Blackbird in the crabapple tree' by Pamela Grace, artist and print-maker based in southwestern Scotland #WomensArt pic.twitter.com/2KExLuTUih
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) August 23, 2022
PODCAST
I know this is cheating because it’s actually a TV show about a podcast… but the Hulu comedy-drama Only Murders In The Building (available via Disney+) is a sparkling delight. Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short (who gets all the funniest lines) have superb odd-trio chemistry, and the series captures the way a lowkey, low-budget form such as the true-crime podcast can worm its way into the listeners’ lives.
TECH
It might sound a bit pedestrian, but Workflowy – a handy list of lists - is the app I rely on most for keeping my life and dozens of projects in order.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Kila Lord-Cassidy, child star of my new film The Wonder (in which her mother is played by Kila’s own mother, Elaine Cassidy), is one to watch. Even her audition tape brought tears to my eyes.
Tom Burke, Niamh Algar, Elaine Cassidy, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Dermot Crowley, Brían F. O'Byrne and David Wilmot have been cast alongside Florence Pugh in Sebastián Lelio’s #TheWonder. pic.twitter.com/4nkNox3GyO
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) August 12, 2021
Haven is published by Picador. The world première of Room with live score performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, introduced by director Lenny Abrahamson, composer Stephen Rennicks and novelist/adaptor Emma Donoghue in conversation with John Kelly, is at National Concert Hall, Dublin on Saturday, September 3rd 2022 at 7:30 p.m - find out more here.
