ON THE TOWN/Kevin Courtney: Newsflash: television broadcasting is a hotbed of sex, romance and intrigue. Former RTÉ producer Anita Notaro launched her new exposé of the industry, Back After The Break, at the Four Seasons hotel,Dublin, and she was naming names.
Luckily, all of the names in the book were fictional, but lots of real-life characters were eagerly perusing Notaro's début novel, searching for themselves between the lines.
Launching Notaro's novel was the doyenne of Irish potboilers, Patricia Scanlan, who Notaro first met while producing RTÉ's millennium show. Scanlan urged Notaro to write a novel, saying: "There must be loads of stories right here". Notaro's story is already in the top 10 fiction lists, so clearly lots of people want to get a peek behind the scenes from the view of someone who worked on such programmes as The Late Late Show and the Eurovision Song Contest.
Pat Kenny and members of the cast of Fair City were there, along with Dave Fanning and his wife, Ursula, who has just given birth to a baby girl, Hayley. Dubliner and garden designer supreme Diarmuid Gavin of the BBC's make-over programme, Homefront, came along; Big Brother's Anna Nolan, who now solves real-life romantic problems through her new TV show, Ask Anna, also made an appearance.
Other non-fictional characters at the launch were RTÉ Assistant Director General, Liam Miller and his wife, Britt, PR guru Liam Gaskin and his wife, Sandra, chat show presenter and beautician Clare McKeon, Frank Hession, hairdresser to the stars (who is often mistaken for car racing guru Eddie Jordan) and Notaro's best friend, director Dearbhla Walshe. Will Walshe direct the movie version of Back After The Break? Stay tuned.
Kevin Courtney
Back after the Break review W13