Features on Haiti and Derry school part of RTÉ spring schedule

DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT Haiti before the earthquake struck and a reunion among ex-pupils of the Derry school which produced two Nobel Prize winners have been announced as additions to RTÉ’s spring schedule.

The documentary on Haiti features George Hook, the rugby commentator, who went there in October as part of the Haven partnership which is building houses in what is the Americas’ poorest country.

It has since had to be updated to take account of the devastating earthquake.

St Columb’s College in Derry was the alma mater of poet Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and John Hume, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Among its alumni also taking part are the poet Seamus Deane, songwriters Paul Brady and Phil Coulter and author and campaigner Eamonn McCann.

There will be a two-part documentary on the rise and fall of the Progressive Democrats and on the role of Irish missionaries in the developing world.

The 1980s television programme Fame will be the basis for a light entertainment show presented by Craig Doyle entitled Fame The Musical, a search for stars who will ultimately perform in a musical staged at the Grand Canal Theatre and subsequently tour nationwide.

It will be judged by Erica Gimpel who played Coco in the original television series, Fame.

Young people's television will feature a new animation series, Happy Valley, based on well-known nursery rhymes. It hopes to emulate the success of the series Garth and Bev, which started yesterday on the CBeebies channel.

RTÉ News reported some of its highest ratings ever during the cold snap. The audience which watched the Six One Newson January 6th, during the worst of the cold weather, peaked at nearly a million viewers. The official figure of 865,000 was the highest rated news bulletin since the Millennium news broadcast on January 1st, 2000. The average for broadcasts in January is usually about 545,000.