Eamann Breen's new radio play Shinaid will air this Sunday (May 26) in the Drama On One slot on RTÉ Radio 1 - listen to it above.
In Shinaid, an Irish woman in London experiences a dramatic and life-changing event that forces her to look at her life choices.
Eamann Breen introduces Shinaid below.
Shinaid didn’t start out as a radio play. It appeared on my consciousness as an observation as I walked past Kings Cross Train Station one sunny summer morning.
I noticed a young woman standing statue still at the front of the long queue and I wondered what her story was. Like Mr Bernstein in Citizen Kane, this was an image I returned to several times in the next few weeks and before I wrote a word I began to add some details to her story in my mind.
I decided she is from Cork, that she has just split from her long-term boyfriend who was not from Ireland, she is adrift in this city and feels untethered. I imagined she would be witness to a dramatic event, something that would shock and shake her and make her, no force her to look at her life and choices in a different way. She would of course resist all offers of help from friends and co-workers, she would be funny, she would be droll and most deliciously she would be an unreliable witness to the events in her life. I also wanted the piece to have a strong LGBTQ+ pattern in its fabric.
Once I understood where the starting point was, I began to create her narrative.
Initially I wanted to tell Shinaid’s story over the course of just one day and then I was persuaded by my writing group peers to explore the aftermath, and so the tale morphed from a story to a monologue and now to a radio play. One of the elements I wanted to bring to this piece was an immediacy and intimacy that audio drama is so good at, which is the sense that you can have a story told directly almost as if the Shinaid is sitting by your side telling you her life, her thoughts, and feelings with no filter.
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Listen: In The Wings - the making of Shinaid
Shinaid (as played by Hilary Rose) is both the narrator and the protagonist, and we hear about her relationship with Jimmy her ex-boyfriend (Tadgh Murphy), Millicent Murphy (Sharon Mannion) her best friend in New York who she contacts for support, Eduardo her friend (John D Ruddy) who she confides in and Ruth, a counsellor, (Helen Norton) that she is referred to by Human Resources at her job.
Recording for radio allowed us to use sounds and dialogue to move with the characters, supporting the shifts in the narrative but also grounding the action in a way that feels real and immediate. Our director Gorretti Slavin was able to quickly identify to the essence of the characters and permit them to spar and banter and argue in dramatic and comic ways which reflects how life is; nothing is clear, tidy, and polite or lasts forever.
The title Shinaid comes from the phonetic spelling of ‘Sinead’, and I wanted this to be a clue as how the main character struggles to be understood and also how on some level she resists the temptation to be pigeon-holed and forced to conform. There is quite a bit of Shinaid that still maintains a rebel-like approach in her life, and non-conforming is as much a part of her character as anything else."
Shinaid will air this Sunday 26th May 2024 on Drama On One on RTÉ Radio 1, at 8.02 pm. Directed by Gorretti Slavin, the cast features Hilary Rose, Tadhg Murphy, Helen Norton, Sharon Mannion and John D Ruddy. Listen to more from Drama On One here.
