AFTER MONTHS (and years) of planning, writing, pre-production, re-writing, filming and post-production, the long awaited TV series from the pen of local writer Billy Roche hits our screens on Sunday night.
The four-part drama ‘Clean Break’ is a very modern tale of a very modern dilemma. Filmed and set in Wexford, the Celtic Tiger has ended and local car dealer Frank Mallon’s back is to the wall. The banks are taking everything and in a place of desperation, he comes up with the idea of carrying out a Tiger Kidnapping which, as luck would have it, goes wrong.
That’s the premise but as everyone knows, Billy is a writer whose interest and talent lies in the development of his characters: “It’s a crime drama but I’m more into the characters, their relationships and what effect this incident has on them all. I do hope that the audience will end up rooting for Frank though.”
It’s a topic that we are all too well versed in – from boom to bust – but it’s also one that perhaps is difficult to write because of how recent it is: “The problem with writing about the bust is the corporate and commercial language associated with it all. The trick to take that and turn it into a human story.
“But it’s not a new story either. The Greeks and Shakespeare were writing about politics and corruption thousands of years ago. There is one character in ‘Clean Break’ is quite vocal and republican in a sense that he laments what Ireland has become and believes our historical heroes are turning in their graves over it. It is a microcosm of Ireland, of what we were and what we became.”
While it seems like the last few weeks and months, in particular have been hectic, Billy remarks that the series has been on his mind for four or five years between the initial planning and pitching to the writing and filming.
The cast includes locals Dermot Murphy, Cillian Tobin and Sean Byrne as well as Adam Fergus who plays the lead role and who has since been noticed in Hollywood, having just finished a film called ‘I.T.’ with Pierce Brosnan.
“It’s interesting how somebody’s time just comes around like that. Adam is getting a lot of notice now.”
It is interesting to look at the TV and movie scene of today, particularly one of the biggest TV hits of recent years.
“All of my mates are on ‘Game of Thrones’ now,” laughs Billy, referring to Irish actors Liam Cunningham and Aiden Gillen. Both actors, who play characters in the hit series, launched their careers off portraying characters in his Wexford Trilogy when it was adapted for the BBC in the early 1990s.
Wexford actor Gary Lydon and actress Dervla Kirwan also boosted their careers off the back of the series and Lydon has been an ever-present in Billy’s productions since then.
As always, Wexford is at the centre of everything Billy does and he will watch the TV premier of the series at home: “I think Wexford is waiting with baited breath to see what ‘Clean Break’ has to say and sitting down to watch it, knowing that maybe half a million others are doing the same thing is quite a special feeling.”
‘Clean Break’ airs on Sunday night (September 27) on RTE 1 at 9:30 p.m.
[Full interview in this week’s Echo newspaper]