Fry drops in to soft-soap cast of TG4's 'Ros na Rún'

HIS CAMEO appearance lasts only three minutes, but the cast and crew of TG4’s long-running soap opera Ros na Rún are hopeful that Stephen Fry’s appearance on tonight’s show will mark a turning point.

Fry ambles into the soap’s pub Tigh Thaidhg as an English tourist lost in Connemara and looking for directions. There he encounters two of the soap’s most enduring characters, Tadhg Ó Diréain (Macdara Ó Fatharta) and resident barfly Séamus Ó Catháin (Diarmuid Mac An Adhaistair).

Fry filmed his cameo last autumn. In Connemara to film a BBC documentary about minority languages called Planet Word, he offered to take part in the drama after visiting the set.

Ros na Rún attracts about 100,000 viewers a week for its twice-weekly episode and Sunday omnibus. It remains Irish television’s “best-kept secret” – even though it has been around for 15 seasons, according to its producer Hugh Farley.

“It is a challenge because so many people have antipathy towards the Irish language. My biggest hope for the episode is that if you can get a number of people who would never have seen it before to tune in, they will see that it is really well-acted and kind of funny too,” he said.

“Our pacing and production values are much greater than you would find on a standard soap. We do a lot of comedy on the show.”

Farley said Fry’s offer was a “gift from heaven” for the show, not just because of his profile but because of the most “unusual combination of the most English person you could think of in the most Irish of situations”.

Fry made quite an impression on the cast too. “When he came up to us and introduced himself to us – not that he had to – we talked about hurling, Norwich City and rugby and that all happened within a minute,” said Ó Fatharta. He described Fry as a “perfect gentleman”.

Mac An Adhaistair said: “It was a very exciting day. When he came on set, he was the same as any of us. You could see from how professional he was that he was well used to cameras.”

In his role, Fry utters a few phrases in halting Irish including “Dia daoibh” and “go raibh maith agat agus slán go foill”, which he pronounces as “foyle”. “His Irish was on a par with Séamus Mhicil Tom’s [Séamus Ó Catháin] English so the two balance each other out,” Mac An Adhaistair added.

Ros na Rún is on TG4 at 8.30pm tonight.