Last week I began a draft a blog on specifically Belfast actors and unfortunately it has been overtaken by events. Last weekend Dublin actor David Kelly (82) died.
I first came across David Kelly in the early 1960s. He had a supporting role in a BBC comedy called “Me Mammy” which starred Milo O’Shea as an Irish business executive living in London. Later (1977-81) he would play a one-armed dishwasher (Albert Riddle) in the ITV comedy “Robin’s Nest”. ..an Irish stereotype. And perhaps his best known role was as O’Reilly the dim witted and careless builder hired by John Cleese in “Fawlty Towers” (1975).
That of course was how Kelly appeared to an “English” audience. He was in fact a man of the theatre……accomplished in Shaw, Ibsen, Beckett, Shakespeare. But that WAS the problem with Irish actors. These were often excellent actors who paid the bills in stereotypical roles. And to me that often seemed embarrassing.
David Kelly did however live long enough to become appreciated. And made the leap from being an “Irish actor” to just being an “actor”. He was helped of course by Ireland becoming interesting to Hollywood. For example he appeared in “Into The West” and “Waking Ned”. And he was able to appear in “Willie Wonka” and “Stardust”, neither of which were specifically Irish roles.
I declare an interest. My uncle was involved in amateur dramatics in Belfast in the 1940s and 1950s and his cousin was a professional actor in Dublin, part of the RTE “stock company”………unfortunately I only met him once and he gave me the grand tur of the RTE studios where he was a continuity announcer.
I only ever saw him once on television on ITVs “This Is Your Life”. He was guest on a programme for an English actress who had spent some time in Ireland.
Acting has always intrigued me. Is it in the blood?
But why is it that Irish actors in the 1960s were merely character actors but in the 1980s emerged in more demanding roles…….Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Rea, Pearse Brosnan, Cillian Murphy among them. Well……….the first reason is that they are good actors. Second there were a lot of movies with Irish themes…….”Into The West”, “Veronica Guerin”, “The Committments” among them. Thirdly there are a lot of movies made in Ireland (there were generous tax breaks to make for example “Braveheart”) and mini series such as “The Tudors” and “Game of Thrones” are made in Belfast.
But perhaps the biggest single reason is …..The Troubles. from 1969 onwards. BBC and ITV series such as “Harrys Game” provided a stream of work for people to play gunmen, bombers, police, doctors, politicians.And of course movies such as “The Boxer”, “In The Name of The Father”, “Michael Collins”, “The Wind That Shakes The Barley”.
Nearly all Irish actors have literally played their part.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
Not really interested in an actors nationality he/she is either good enough and you don’t care or not and you wonder who they went to be with to get the job.
It may be that many Irish actors were primarily stage actors with perhaps a tendency to overdo it on camera. BTW I think you left Richard Harris out. Great Actor probably the best of the bunch and Daniel Day Lewis said he was Irish.
I just wondered and its the reason for this comment how many of those films/stage plays were pro unionist…
Well I think that primarily Irish actors within Ireland needed to be versatile. And probably too many were stereotypical actors. Looking back on the only occasion that I met my fathers cousin (he died quite young) he was rather stereotypical….but he had been involved in “fit ups” travelling groups of actors putting on performances in towns and villages. Indeed the “English” actress to whom I referred was a young member of the group.
Yes I think that putting on Shaw, Shakespeare, Beckett in village halls and being accomplished scholars only to be better known as a “drunk” or “tramp” on BBC/ITV was a problem. Id liken it to the role of black actors in Hollywood in say Gone With The Wind. On receiving the Oscar (best supporting actress) the actress whose name eludes me for the moment said “I want to be a credit to my race” which seems seventy years later to be toe curlingly bad, Ediie Rochester Anderson was Jack Benny’s sidekick but Benny insisted that scriptwriters did nothing that was patronising or stereotypical. Indeed Benny was far ahead of his time in that respect.
BBC seemed to have a “go to” list of Irish actors (central casting if you like) and Im sure the money was good.
Richard Harris…youre absoltely right…….was one of the few Irish actors who got above being cast as “Irish”.
To some extent, the “Irish and Belfast” actor thoughts were inspired by BBCNI re-showing the “Billy” trilogy……Kenneth Branagh and James Ellis and of course Im skeptical about dramas about The Troubles. (the Troubles was background rather than central in “Billy”). Graham Reed wrote these and I suppose he is in the tradition of Sam Thompson the East Belfast “Labour” man who wrote Over The Bridge. This had been about Catholics being intimidated at the shipyard…..controversial as it offended unionists and most of the actors were in the Group Theatre production.
Actors and Playwrights will always be a little “off the wall” perhaps lefty (rather than strictly nationalist/unionist) and bohemian in an artsy way.
Take for example Martin Lynch, a lefty who stood as a Republican Clubs (aka The Workers Party) in 1973 ish and er lets just say we are known to each other.
Lets say it came as a major surprise when he was hailed by the people who write the Irish Times as a playwright and authentic voice of West Belfast. That crowd loves to adopt a working class hero.
Mostly I am jealous. Lync observed most of the same things I did. Take his “The Troubles According To My Da”, it is popular with audiences because its a collection of anecdotes which resonate. Lynch at least had the energy to write a play that a lot of us could have written.
Were these plays “pro unionist”? Well certainly theres an agenda. Even Sean O’Casey would have had an agenda in The Plough and The Stars and Juno and the Paycock. Perhaps best summed up in speeches by Juno or Nora Clitheroe or Mrs Tancred.
The early dramas on the Troubles. eg Harrys Game written by ITV News journo Gerald Seymour had a stiff upper lip British undercover agent befriending idealistic republican girl and of course falling foul of republicans. Probably she ended up dead. And most early dramas follow that line.
For example in a three hander Play For Today, Colin Blakely plays an undercover RUC detective sharing a holding cell with Liam Neeson as a Catholic who has been arrested on suspicion. It is Blakelys job to get information by pretending to be an extreme Republican. In fact Neeson is innocent and actually makes a speech about seeing news footage of bodies being shovelled up at Oxford Street bus station. And he is unaware that Blakely was the RUC man who did it. The third part is played by Colm Meaney who is the RUC jailor.
This kind of play quickly becomes clichéd as effectively all dramas sum it up as pragmatic British who recognise mistakes versus idealistic but thuggish Irishmen. And civilians, usually red headed women get caught in the crossfire.
Irish……and Belfast actors ..played their parts in this.
As the Troubles progressed, the dramas became more “nuanced”…less stridently pro-British.
And of course the actors who had played these parts outgrew the narrow type casting.
Hi, please take a look at my ever evolving website ulsteractors.com
Regards,
John Kernaghan
Thank you John.
I will certainly read that at my leisure.
Preminary observations are that I had completely forgotten Margaretta Darcy who was also a friend of my father.
But good to see so many familiar names like John Hewitt, excellent in Rattle of A Simple Man with Roy Heayburn and (I cant recall the female in the three-hander at the Arts Theatre circa 1976 but she was a BBCNI continuity announcer/newsreader).
Patrick McAlinney great as the Irish Doctor in a comedy with Arthur Lowe as a priest and one of the Abinieris as a young curate (1980s). Nobody could quite balance a cigarette on his bottom lip so well.
I had completely forgotten that Sam Neill was born here. Such a good actor.
But I think the Nesbitts, Reas, Hinds, Dunbars, Neesons owe an enormous debt to those early TV pioneers.
I had no idea that John hallam, a kinda specialist at playing big menacing parts was born here.