On a poetic journey

TV REVIEW:RIFFLING THROUGH the listings for this week's viewing, I found myself having a churlish reaction to the plethora of programmes, both on television and radio, marking the 70th birthday of Seamus Heaney.

The poet’s sepia face, sculpted, it seemed, from bog oak and mashed potato, dominated the supplements. Oh no, I thought, I’m going to have to wade through some serious art this week, I’m going to have to blast the jelly tots out of my neurons, deflate my children (who are whooping it up around the computer keyboard on their long Easter holiday) and think of something to write about a man, a Nobel laureate, who already dominates the poetic landscape and about whom any more words are surely superfluous. A man who is called “famous Seamus” by his friends and who has already made his mark on Cockney rhyming slang as another way of saying bikini (don’t forget to pack your Seamus Heaney).

And then I sat down and watched Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous, and felt my resistance crumble, my truculence turn to dust. This was a beautifully rendered and unforgettable documentary about a remarkable man, a portrait by which I (most unexpectedly) felt tremendously moved. The morning after it was aired, I was discussing the programme with my brother in my messy kitchen, and he suggested – while picking Monopoly houses out of the jam – that it was Heaney's generosity in allowing a frank perusal of his life, combined with his extraordinary clarity, lack of artifice and ability to unravel the darkness for us (or "to raid the inarticulate", as Heaney has said), that made this an inspirational piece of work.

An intimate portrayal of the man, his marriage and his work, made with Heaney’s seemingly unfettered collaboration, there was no sense of professorial posturing or artistic obfuscation going on in Charlie McCarthy’s superb film.

From the depths of his couch, where he sat with his wife, Marie Devlin, Heaney did, however, speak about self-presentation and the promotional requirements of his work. There was footage of the poet at book signings and readings in Boston, of lines of fans snaking around the streets of New York City, queuing up to hear him in conversation with friend and fellow poet Paul Muldoon. Yet the beauty of McCarthy’s film was that we too felt like insiders: for the duration of the piece, we were there, waiting with Heaney in the wings, perched on the rug at his hearth. We were included.

I could spend the rest of this review recounting his conversation, including his memories of his childhood in Co Derry and of his mother who, after nine births in 12 years, had “a lack of bitterness and a shine on her presence”. This was a portrait of a farmer’s son, “a different caste from the ruling caste”, who had the pleasure of walking his wife (of all of 24 hours) into Faber and Faber in London (which remains to this day his publisher) and bumping into eminent poet Philip Larkin at the door (a “tall, balding salmon of a man”, as Larkin described himself), so beginning an illustrious career and a durable, inspiring marriage. Neither Heaney nor Devlin are too taken with the word “muse”, but there seemed to be an acceptance in their interviews that Marie’s presence infuses her husband’s work.

And, of course, Heaney read from the work. So much for media saturation; his rendition of his poem, A Kite for Michael and Christopher, dedicated to his two sons, was enough to shut out the background noise and bring his art triumphantly into focus.

This was a brilliantly realised piece of work, and particular tribute must be paid to production designer Brian Vahey, whose visual interpretation of Heaney’s exterior and interior worlds was pure poetry.

VISUALLY STUNNING TOO is the mad, wild beauty of Connemara. Those lunatic moonlit fjords and the insane solitude of a single unshakable tree, chained to a purple hill, clawing at a yellow night. The epic beauty of the west of Ireland was the backdrop for the latest instalment of Single-Handed, the third in an occasional series featuring young Garda sergeant Jack Driscoll (Owen McDonnell), the lonesome sheriff of the west. Played out over two nights of diminishing cocoa solids, Single-Handed was a vaguely enjoyable Easter diversion, with spectacular scenery to glimpse behind an essentially predictable and flimsy plot.

I really don’t want to be catty about the drama, because it did engage me enough to keep me on the couch for a couple of hours, but there was a sense that with such seriously top-of-the-range ingredients, somebody could have, or should have, made a tastier cake. The production values were terrific, the show looked great, the art direction was superb, the location magical, and the cast, led by McDonnell, a solid, attractive and intelligent actor, pretty flawless. But the storyline, which glanced off the zeitgeist like a plummeting kestrel (unseen ex-paramilitary drug baron with legitimate international business dealings), was slight and unconvincing.

Led by a Dublin squad under the command of Chief Supt Lynch (a pitch-perfect Michael McElhatton), Driscoll stumbles on an undercover operation to unseat a mysterious king of contraband and is then thrown together with his old flame and colleague, Maura Dooley (Marcella Plunkett, as delicately beautiful as the setting). What follows is comfortably undemanding, Driscoll pitching his flawed integrity against the town’s baddies, including Denis Nolan (Owen Roe, effortlessly dangerous as a shaky pillar of the community), and their victims, including Ciaran O’Malley (a terrific Peter Gowen), heroically broken and caught in the crossfire.

Reading a little like an elongated episode of The Bill, Single-Handed probably won’t go down in the annals of television history, but it is an interesting pointer as to what can be achieved with home-grown drama. With so many of the elements in place, all this series needs is to reach a little higher for originality.

THE OTHER BIG TV showpiece of the week was Secrets of the Stones, a two-part series from RTÉ, the second of which will be aired on May 4th during the Bank Holiday weekend. I'm not sure of the rationale behind this hiatus, but maybe the producers want us to be in a relaxed frame of mind to view their not inconsiderable oeuvre.

Secrets of the Stonesis a mega-production, with state-of-the-art film technology bringing six of the country's historic sites to life and a whole caucus of historians, archaeologists and scientists attempting to reconstruct a picture of ancient Irish life. It is fascinating stuff: our ancestors, viewed through the prism of our abundant electronic expertise, seem like resourceful old things who just may have been at the centre of a great ancient European religion. Remarkable how one's perspective can be changed simply by turning the map of the world sideways.

There is also strong evidence that we are the progeny of folk who faced cataclysmic climate change of their own, with comet dust blocking out the sun and raining missiles down on the earth. Look, it’s astonishing stuff, and the contributors have the requisite burning intensity to make you feel that you really have to sit up and pay attention. I got a little overwhelmed by the endless shots of scudding cloud and the relentlessly momentous soundtrack, and, to be honest, there were moments when I felt like sneaking down to the back of the classroom. But there’s a book to accompany the series, and I’m going to read it. I think it’s just that I need my enigmas unravelled slowly.

tvreview@irishtimes.com

Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous RTÉ1, Tuesday

Single-Handed RTÉ1, Sunday and Monday

Secrets of the Stones RTÉ1, Saturday

Fashion crisis? Gok'll fix it

Hey, girlfriend! Gok's back, and he is, like, sooo going to get your knicker-line straight this time. Gok's Fashion Fix is back for series number God-knows-what, with the prince of pert actually appearing somewhat more benign than previous incarnations.

This week Gok had a lot of bubbly girls road-testing padded swimwear, each suit designed with more structural engineering than a motorway flyover. The ladies all crashed down the swimming-pool slide in inflatable rubber rings to see whether their voluminous bottoms would remain clad. Gok then denuded an essentially shy Cornish woman's wardrobe and psyche, binning her tarty party dresses and pretty much telling her that social inadequacy couldn't be covered up by shoving her knockers into a cheap Lycra mini-dress and waddling around the cricket-club social.

Hey presto! By the end of the programme she was suitably attired in modest green-and-white polka dot, presumably to the disappointment of the umpire.