On Sunday 23rd February, RTÉ Drama On One will broadcast The Four-Faced Liar by Ger Fitzgibbon - the play tunes into the nocturnal lives of a constellation of Cork characters, their triumphs, losses and dreams - listen above.
The play stars Andrew Bennett, Dawn Bradfield, Denis Conway, Orla Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Moynihan, Alex Murphy, Gary Murphy, Tatiana Ouliankina, and Norma Sheahan.
Here, Ger Fitzgibbon describes the origins of a radiophonic night on the town by the Lee...
It is part of the traditional lore of Cork city that the four clocks on the four faces of Shandon Steeple rarely agree about the exact time, earning it the name "The Four-Faced Liar". Despite that eccentricity, Shandon is the most recognisable and much-loved emblem of the city. You can see or hear it from almost every part of Cork city centre. But what if the reverse were also true? What if Shandon could see into the hearts and minds of the city's inhabitants?
With the eyes of Shandon to guide us, and the voices of the Four Liars to comment as we go, we go on a journey through the night-world of Cork, through the hidden streams that flow under the city and through the dreams and desires that flow through its people, whether past or present. The Polish cashier in a builders’ suppliers; the one-legged soldier in Flea Park; the sixteen-year-old with a crush on her new online friend; the shy, stammering carpenter with romantic inclinations; the undertaker with an unexpected fantasy life: these are just five of the many characters we encounter in this night-walk through Cork’s physical, psychic and historic landscape.
Some of those who’ve read the script describe it as like a love-song to the city. And maybe it is that, but perhaps in the way that Fairytale of New York is a kind of love-song to New York. In my head, it’s like one of those really big family weddings or family funerals, where you bump into a load of people, there are different stories going on around every corner, different generations, different voices, mingling, singing, arguing… And where you are very conscious of the ghosts of previous generations. But it’s also about the way the city is defined by the river, the way the river flows through, and around and under us, shaping our landscape and our consciousness.
When I was a child, I spent one long period sick in bed. My lifelines were Meccano, reading, and listening to the radio. I loved the way radio could take you anywhere – to an Irish farmhouse or the far side of the moon, to a flying doctor in the Australian outback or to revolutionary France. And then I read Dylan Thomas’s dream-play, Under Milk Wood and that opened up a whole new set of possibilities, a form that allowed you to mingle voices and tones, realism and fantasy, past and present…
I hope you enjoy the night-walk through the city.
RTÉ Drama On One: The Four-Faced Liar, RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday 23rd February at 8pm - listen to more from Drama On One here
