³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

On the day that the media paid tribute toÌýthe late John Barry, I spent time talking,Ìýnot so much about Bond film music,Ìýbut about his Irish roots. His fatherÌýwas from Cork and Barry'sÌýlove of Ireland was maybe why, when the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ approached him about making a programme on him, he went with a Belfast based tv producer.ÌýClare Delargy made, what I believe, is the definitiveÌýdocumentary on Barry.

Back in 1999 she made initial contact with him forÌýthe ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ arts strand "Omnibus". Over 9 months in 2000Ìýshe met up with him, filming him in his Long Island home; she met him in York, England where he grew up; and she brought him back to Ireland, to the breathtakingly beautiful Glendalough.Ìý

Listen to her moving and passionateÌýtribute to the man she metÌýon Arts Extra.ÌýIf the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ ever has a John Barry night theyÌýhave toÌýre-run this quite wonderful tv programme.

Thanks Clare. She was the only person throughout the whole day of obits to him who actually said "I pass on my condolences to his family". You know she knew how privileged she had been. And John Barry was very lucky to have had Clare making this film.

Ìý

Ìý

Richard Dormer's is blowing up a storm again at the Opera House in Belfast. Sorry for the cliche but it really is. I never saw it first time around. 2002 Old Museum Arts Centre. Have kicked myself over the years every time someone would say that it was the greatest show ever.ÌýIt raised the roof. Another cliche. I can't help it. It really is one of those shows. The rock n roll, rollercoaster ride, real life story of Alex "Hurricane" Higgins, two time world snooker champion from Belfast's Sandy Row. Michael Billington the former theatre critic for the Guardian said that Dormer's performance was in his top 5 of all time. But there is something about Dormer's performance, and remember he wrote the play too, that does make it a stand out piece of theatre.

Listen again to Arts ExtraÌýfor our reviewÌýwith Grania McFadden and Eamon McCann and if you have 1 hour and 7 mins to spare, get to the Opera House in Belfast between now andÌýthe 29thÌýJanuaryÌýor the Millennium Forum in Derry (4 & 5 Feb) to see this show.

So Seamus Heaney is on his way to the Caribbean to see his friend Derek Walcott. So Walcott told me moments ago. They were both shortlisted for the 2010 TS Eliot Poetry Prize which Walcott won last night.ÌýBut rather than rejoice in his latest award, the Nobel laureate said on a crackly line from St Lucia that we hereÌýin Ireland should be proud of Seamus Heaney. Oh to be a fly on the wall at that reunion later today,Ìýand theÌýtoasts, not to poetry prizes and media interest, but to friendshipÌýin the Caribbean sunshine.

Derek Walcott has won the 2010 TS Eliot Prize for Poetry with "White Egrets". The St Lucia based poet wasn't at the prize giving ceremony earlier this evening in London to pick up the £15,000 prize. He'sÌýback home in the Caribbean. Among the prestigious bunch of poets he beat this year, his close friend Seamus Heaney with hisÌýlatest collection "Human Chain". Heaney and the others all get £1000 but IÌýknow Heaney will raise of glass of rum in his pal's honour tonight, not for the money but the bonds of friendship which have endured across the world and the years.Ìý Here's just one of the beautiful poems in Walcott's new collection courtesy of Faber and Faber.

‘Sixty Years After’
ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý
In my wheelchair in the Virgin lounge at Vieuxfort,
I saw, sitting in her own wheelchair, her beauty
hunched like a crumpled flower, the one whom I thought
as the fire of my young life would do her duty
to be golden and beautiful and young forever
even as I aged. She was treble-chinned, old, her devastating
smile was netted in wrinkles, but I felt the fever
briefly returning as we sat there, crippled, hating
time and the lie of general pleasantries.
Small waves still break against the small stone pier
where a boatman left me in the orange peace
of dusk, a half-century ago, maybe happier
being erect, she like a deer in her shyness, I stalking
an impossible consummation; those who knew us
knew we would never be together, at least, not walking.
Now the silent knives from the intercom went through us.

• This poem is from White Egrets by Derek Walcott, published by Faber & Faber.

"Are you out yet?" Artist Sinead O'Donnell was recently asked. Nothing to do with her sexuality,ÌýbutÌý her dyslexia.ÌýBeing "out" in this context meant outing an invisibleÌýdisability.Ìý

Today the 32 year old Dublin born performance artist, who only found out about her dyslexia in 2004, received an award of £70,000 for a major new artworkÌý - CAUTION - which will explore invisibility. ÌýIt's one of 13 new commissions for , a ground breaking programme for the Cultural Olympiad that celebrates arts and culture by disabled and deaf artists.

Sinead, who has been based in Belfast since 1995, is a graduate of the University of Ulster where she studiedÌýsculpture. Her work today is performance based. TheÌýpieceÌýshe's working on involves her stackingÌýupÌýdinner plates to her height, around 170 she told me, and then putting on an extra 30/40Ìýuntil they wobble and come crashing down.

SheÌýcame into studio earlier with a Japanese performance artist, Shiro Masuyama. He apologised for his lack of English and spoke haltingly, but passionately, about Sinead and her work. He is one of five international artistsÌýcollaborating with her on CAUTION.He has ADD, another invisible disability.

Applications for the third and final round of commissions are now open from disabled and Deaf artists or disability arts groups. Check out

CAUTION is due to be shown in 2012 in the gt gallery in Belfast.

So Belfast'sÌýLyric TheatreÌýtoday releasedÌýhighlights of its first season in its multi million pound rebuild. And has already been tweeting about it.
"News... I shall be appearing in my first stage play, The Painkiller, alongside the brilliant Kenneth Branagh, in Belfast, opens 29th Sept"Ìý

Branagh talks about his love of theatre in Belfast, his "hometown" heÌýsays, and refers to the Billy Plays and where heÌýcut his teeth.ÌýIt's excitingÌýto see him back. And of courseÌýRob Brydon up close and personal. I am aÌýhuge Brydon fan, his latest collaboration with SteveÌýCoogan in the quite brilliant "The Trip" was one of my favouriteÌýtv shows of 2010.

It's great news too for the Lyric as these big impact names will inevitably get bums on seats.

Now how will they persuade Liam Neeson to tread those boards again?ÌýÌý

Ìý

I saw last night. Colin Firth as King George VI and the true story of how he tried to overcome his stammer by working with an unorthodox speech therapist Lionel Logue played by Geoffrey Rush.Ìý

There's a lot of talk around this film at the moment, especially for a fairly small budget film which looks like it's going to storm the Baftas, Golden Globes and then the Oscars.

Firth deserves all the nominations he has got and there has to be an Oscar for him this year. He captures the stammer, the frustration, the anger, the child hood demons of a man who finds himself voiceless in a new radio age - and someone who was never expected to be King.

But after the abdication of his older brother Edward VIII (played brilliantly by Guy Pearce), "Bertie" as he's known to his family not only finds himself King of England but Head of State as his country goes into war with Germany.

The drama of this story is immense - Hitler, news reels of the Nuremberg Rallies, Edward and Mrs Simpson, his abdication, political upheaval in the British Government (it's not often Stanley Baldwin gets his moment in the sun) and at the heart of it the changing media age. Microphones loom throughout this film, a malign presence, an invasion of personal space, especially Buckingham Palace. Now even monarchs are forced, as Michael Gambon as King George V says "to be actors". The House of Windsor finds itself struggling to be relevant.

All that aside as fairly powerful film material, at the heart of the story is one man's battle to overcome a crippling social disability, a stammer. Ìý

I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and even though that first war time speech of George VI can be heard , the speech stilted, the stammer never far from overcoming the King, Firth's performance takes us behind the scenes in a way no history book can ever do.Ìý

I'm a huge fan of Colin Firth (raging he didn't get the Oscar for Best Actor for "A Single Man" last year) but as he walked towards the monstrous looking microphone I was scrunched down in my seat barely able to look at the screen, dreading what he was having to do.

By the end of the 6 minute speech, with Geoffrey Rush almost conducting every word (including a few mouthed swear words and stunning use of the 2nd movement from Beethoven's 7th Symphony) I was nearly on my feet rooting for him in a way I never imagined I would for a monarch!

It's interesting that Firth's portrayal of George V is similar to Helen Mirren's portrayal of his daughter Queen Elizabeth II inÌý"The Queen". Both are restrained performances that afford a sense of intimacy with a monarch.

It seems a far cry from the 1990's American mini series about the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Di, or the daily tabloid headlines about Royal scandals, or the 1997 Kitty Kelley book "The Royals" which washed dirty linen with great gusto in a door stopper of a biography. Ìý

It seems as though society is in a different phase where film makers want to reflect the British Royal Family at moments of crisis, but ones which they overcome, their weakest moments becoming their finest hours.Ìý

With the Royal wedding of another future King, Prince William to Kate Middleton in April, it seems the House of Windsor has never had a better PR. Ìý

Ìý

Ìý

Ìý

It's 1979 and The Undertones eponymous debut album is released.

TodayÌýthe band announced a 35th anniversary Ìýduring whichÌýthey'llÌý be performing the entire first album.

But no Feargal. Sharkey, that is, the former lead singer. The singer, for the past ten years now, is Paul McLoone, but still there seems to be thisÌýconstantÌýquestion mark around what if we could getÌýthe original line up again.

So much so, that the morning after Derry won the UK City of Culture bid, there was a celebration in the Millennium Forum. Ed Vaizey, the Culture Minister, took me to one side andÌýearnestly asked meÌýwhat were the chances of The Undertones reforming for 2013?

Mmmm. I didn't want to rain on his parade, and I didn't really think he had the time to be given a crash course in the contrariness of the Derry spirit that would never countenance such a reconciliation, so I found myself saying "well, Robbie is back with Take That, so who knows?"

As I watched his retreating back I couldn't help thinking when Hell freezes over? ÌýÌý

Ìý

Ìý

Ìý

A youngÌýactor from Glengormley leftÌýhere in the 1950's to find work somewhere else. FirstÌýLondon where he was discovered busking outside a cinema. Next stopÌýHollywood. Along the way he changed his name to from Billy Millar to Stephen Boyd andÌý made his screen debutÌýin the film "The Man Who Never Was". But it was that cemented his reputation on screen, starring opposite Charlton Heston as Messala. That's him and Heston on set with the director William Wyler.

Boyd'sÌýstory is being told in a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ NI doc "Stephen Boyd - The Man Who Never Was" next week.ÌýI watched a preview of it today and it charts a remarkably shy man who lived for acting but who shunned the celebrity circuit.Ìý It's worth watching for the American tv archive of Boyd himself, an incredibly handsome man with a movie star smile whose voice isÌýa mid Atlantic cross betweenÌýLiam Neeson and a softer Van Morrison.

Staying with young actors from here who have to seek work elsewhere, I gotÌýa responseÌýon my last blog from a young actor James McAnaspey who is seriously thinking about moving to London or New York to get work.Ìý

During the summerÌýÌýmade similar comments in an interview in the Belfast Telegraph. While some could say actors are always having to go where the work is, it got me thinking about a comment made to me on Facebook from Karl Wallace.

Now based in Kerry with Siamsa Tire, Karl used to be artistic director ofÌýKabosh Theatre Company.ÌýHe askedÌýwhyÌýmid-career level directors like himelf and Rachel O'Riordan the theatre director (who had just announced she was taking up a post at a theatre in Perth, Scotland) had to leave in order toÌýmake their passion into a livelihood. Ìý

While the Stephen Boyd story is to be celebrated, tomorrow Rachel starts her first day at a new job outside of here. Some could say there's a vacuum being created right now that may never be filled.Ìý

"Stephen Boyd - The Man Who Never Was" is on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ I NI Monday 10th January 10.35pm

So last year I blogged that I would keep a diary of my cultural highlights for 2010. I didn't keep the diary but a few jump out.ÌýBlack Watch at the Belfast festival, The Trip on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2,ÌýGary & Robbie making up andÌýTake that reunited, ÌýDerry~Londonderry getting the inaugural City of Culture 2013.

But it was alsoÌýa hard year. And I feel a dread about 2011.ÌýWhen, not if, the funding cuts come thousands of artists are going to be devastated.

It's something I have never had to face. But every day I talk to the people whoÌýare driven by some kind of compulsion to create.ÌýÌý

Some are wildly successful, win prizes,Ìýare considered significant cultural figures, get buildings named after them and honorary doctorates.

Others just want to earn a living, be appreciated, have a place in which to create, or at the very least have some heating in their studio,ÌýÌýinstead of once again being at the thin edge of a very thin edge.

So now as we head into a four year spending cull on the arts, nearly £5 million estimated to be cut from DCAL's budget over the next 4 years, where now for the arts in Northern Ireland?Ìý If you were just starting outÌýand had a creative urge would you stay here? Someone said to me today that the cuts to the arts grants would weed out the dross. Harsh words? It's the climate that creativity finds itself in. I'm in the position to see who survives. Join me on Arts Extra throughout the year as we'll be keeping a close eye on the winners and the losers.Ìý

Sean Kelly the director of the Out to Lunch festival told me today that he booked David Soul for this year's festival without having seen his show. The first time ever he's done this. He said he sawÌýit written down in another festival's brochure "David Soul - The Poetry and Passion of Pablo Neruda" jumped out at him. So no one knows what to expect. The audience is bound to made up of Starsky & Hutch fans and those, like me, who bought his records in the1970's. Just the one but yes 1977 and I saved up my pocket money to buy "Let's have a quiet night in". Vinyl 7 inch. And he wasn't even the one I fancied! Paul Michael Glaser always had my vote. But I'll be in the audience next Tuesday in the Black BoxÌý to see if Sean made the right decision to book him. Why shouldn't Hutch do justice to Neruda?

ÌýThe Out to Lunch festival 5-30 Jan Belfast