PI Week 4 January 19 - January 25 2013 A Monumental New Series Adam Hills hosts a brand new comedy panel show on BBC One Northern Ireland Programme Information New this week A Monumental New Series Page 3 Adam Hills hosts a brand new comedy panel show on BBC One Northern Ireland An Ode To Burns And Ulster Page 4 Presenter Neil Oliver explores the connection between his national poet Robbie Burns and Ulster Eddi Reader’s Rabbie Burns Trip Page 5 In a Burns Night special, singer Eddi Reader journeys across Ulster to discover the Bard’s influence on Ulster poets of his time 2 A Monumental New Series Adam Hills hosts a brand new comedy panel show on BBC One Northern Ireland Monumental, begins BBC One Northern Ireland, Friday, January 25, 10.35pm Monumental, a new comedy panel show celebrating the great, the good, funny and peculiar side of Northern Ireland launches on BBC One Northern Ireland. Presented by Australian comic Adam Hills (Channel 4’s “Last Leg”), the six-part series produced by Green Inc Film and Television for BBC Northern Ireland, begins on Friday, January 25 at 10.35pm. Combining comic discussion and debate over a series of games with surprises, each episode also features a special guest receiv- ing “Monumental” status – an entertaining Adam Hills (centre) with the Monumental team members. The series begins on BBC One Northern Ireland, tribute to honour their career and an ac- Friday, January 25 at 10.35pm knowledgement for being a Northern Irish presenter/reporter) followed by Dame the special guest, celebrating their career national treasure. Mary Peters and Diarmuid Corr (BBC achievements and confirming their “Monu- NI’s’“Sketchy”); Denis Taylor and Eleanor mental” status to Northern Ireland. Adam Adam presides over two competing teams, Tiernan (RTE’s “The Savage Eye”; Gerry An- whisks them through their career com- as each week international stand-up star derson and Aisling Bea (BBC3’s “Bad Boss”); edy highs and lows with funny anecdotes, Jimeoin (“Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roy Walker and Yasmin Akram (Channel 4’s memorable archive clips and a few sur- Roadshow, “Royal Variety Performance”) “Peep Show”); Barry McGuigan and Jayne pairs up with award winning actor and com- prises, including recorded messages from ic Michael Smiley (“Spaced” and “Luther”) Wisener (Channel 4’s “The Inbetweeners” a celebrity fan, including Sir Alex Ferguson, in an entertaining battle of wits and one-lin- and BBC Northern Ireland’s “6 Degrees”). Mo Farah and Gary Lineker, Len Goodman, ers, playing against comedy circuit favourite Daniel O’Donnell, Patrick Kielty and Ricky Andrew Maxwell (“Have I Got News For Competing over a series of rounds, each Hatton. You”, “Live at the Apollo”) and exciting lo- designed to reveal comical facts and opin- cal newcomer Micky Bartlett (“Sketchy”). ions about bizarre and brilliant aspects of Series Producer Keith Martin commented: Northern Irish life; from a round celebrat- “It’s great to be doing something funny In each show, recorded in front of an audi- ing a mystery world champion or record which looks for the positives in this place. ence in the BBC’s Blackstaff studios, the reg- breaker from Northern Ireland, to a round We’re buzzing about the talent line-up and ular teams are joined by two special guests, where team members lament “Monumen- the audience seemed to really enjoy the re- one of whom is an established Northern Irish hero who gets awarded “Monumen- tal” things they miss about Northern Ire- cordings, so high hopes.” tal” status at the end of the show. land that no longer exist. Monumental begins on BBC One Northern The first in the series features Eamonn Before Adam declares the winning team at Ireland, Friday, January 25 at 10.35pm. Holmes and Helen McConnell (MUTV the end of the show, he leads a tribute to 3 An Ode To Burns And Ulster Presenter Neil Oliver explores the connection between his national poet Robbie Burns and Ulster An Ode To Burns And Ulster, BBC Two Northern Ireland, Friday, January 25 at 9pm He’s a Scottish national treasure who has been voted the greatest Scot of all time and is regarded as the country’s national poet; but why does the work of Scotsman Robbie Burns resonate so strongly with people in Ulster? In An Ode To Burns And Ulster, on BBC Two NI on Friday, January 25 at 9pm, Scottish presenter Neil Oliver crosses the Irish Sea to see why his fellow countryman’s poetry and songs have had such an impact in Ulster. Born in Ayrshire, Scotland in January, 1759, Burns became - among other things – a poet, a farmer and a father of nine children to his wife before his death in Dumfries in 1796, aged just 37. And as a Dumfries man himself, presenter Neil Oliver has grown Neil Oliver explores the connection between Robbie Burns and Ulster in a new documentary to mark up feeling a strong connection to Robbie Burns Night Burns and his work. Neil meets some of UIster’s best known Neil Oliver says: “This has been an intrigu- and most-respected poets to ask why ing journey for me. Hearing how people Since his death more than 200 years Ulster people feel a particular connection here, in Ulster, have been affected by Burns ago Burns has, of course, gone on to be to him. Neil also asks if Burns has inspired has allowed me, as a Scot, to see my own celebrated worldwide and his work has the writings of poets here and, if so, how? national poet in a different light. It has added meant different things to different people new dimensions to the man and his work.” over the years; with some seeing him as In the programme, Neil talks to poets a romantic poet and others as a political Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, Frank Ormsby, An Ode To Burns And Ulster is a radical. And in this new documentary by Chris Agee and Adam Gillis and Miriam DoubleBand Films production for BBC DoubleBand Films to mark Burns Night, Gamble and traditional singer Len Graham. Northern Ireland. 4 Eddi Reader’s Rabbie Burns Trip In a Burns Night special, singer Eddi Reader journeys across Ulster to discover the Bard’s influence on Ulster poets of his time Eddi Reader’s Rabbie Burns Trip, BBC Two Northern Ireland, Friday, January 25 at 9.30pm In a special Burns Night programme for BBC Two Northern Ireland, Scottish singer and Robert Burns enthusiast Eddi Reader travels across Ulster to discover how the poet influenced his peers on this side of the Irish Sea. In Eddie Reader’s Rabbie Burns Trip, On BBC Two NI on Friday, January 25 at 9.30pm, Eddi takes to the road in a camper van to share her love of Robert Burns and to learn about Ulster’s ‘Weaver Poets’ and Eddi Reader hosts the Burns Night special, Eddie Reader’s Rabbie Burns Trip, which also features Eddi’s the language and themes they shared with performances of some of Burns’ classic songs him. While in Belfast, she is introduced to the Eddi says: “I’d have loved to have met works of Weaver Poet James Orr – the Robert Burns. I’d love to take him by the Interspersed throughout the programme Bard of Ballycarry – who wrote a eulogy hand and take him to all these places that are performances by Eddi of her own to Burns when he died and she also learns know him. I think he would have been acclaimed interpretations of Burns songs about the lauded Ulster poet Samuel amazed. such as Charlie Is My Darling, My Love Is Thomson, who travelled to Scotland to see Like A Red Red Rose and Auld Lang Sayne, Burns . “What Burns did for me, which is I think from a recent concert in Belfast’s Ulster what he did for the poets, was reveal Hall. Eddi then heads to Ballymena to meet a to them that it was okay to sing in your relative of Weaver Poet David Herbison own voice. Of course, I was aware of that Just as Robbie Burns worked as a flax – the Bard of Dunclug and visits the cem- before but certainly, with the Weaver stresser, the Weaver Poets of Ulster worked in the linen industry and were largely etery where an impressive memorial has Poets it sounds like, to me, that things that contemporaries of Burns. been erected in Herbison’s honour. they may have been told to tone down they were allowed to erupt and make bloom and Eddi starts her journey by visiting the In Rathfriland, Eddi learns about the poet make flow, kind of in a beautiful way.” Irish Linen Centre in Lisburn where she and farmer Hugh Porter and hears one discovers how the rhythm of the of his works in which he writes from the Eddi Reader’s Rabbie Burns Trip is a Tern machinery may have influenced the perspective of Burns’ widowed wife, Jean. Television production in association with poets in their writing. Then, in the Linenhall And in Donegal Eddi ends her jaunt by Northern Ireland Screen’s Ulster Scots Library, Belfast, she finds rare works of Burns learning about of one of the few female Broadcast Fund for BBC Northern Ireland. donated by his great-granddaughter who Weaver Poets, Sarah Leech, and enjoys lived in the city. hearing some of her poems. 5.