BANTER

It’s a new start for Banter as we kick off our autumn/winter series. After a run of eight remarkable years with the Bodytonic family in the Twisted Pepper/Wigwam and MVP, we up sticks and move to a new Dublin home. Massive thanks to Bodytonic chief bottle washer Trevor O’Shea for being a sound partner and (occasionally) proper pain in the hoop during this time – we would not have done this without him and his absolutely fantastic team of people.

The new home for Banter’s regular run of shows in the capital will be The Liquor Rooms on Dublin’s Wellington Quay right next door to the Clarence Hotel. We’ll be hosting events there over the next few months and making ourselves at home in a venue where we once spent a lot of time when it was called The Kitchen (the deja-vu is something else).

Our first Banter at the Liquor Rooms will focus on the talent spotters, the people who find and spot new talent when it comes to writers, musicians, actors, theatre-makers and sports people. Just what do these folks look for when they’re assessing and gauging the pack for the individual or individuals who will stand the test of time? What’s the tipping point between hard work and genius? What’s the hardest part of the developmental process? And what about the ones who got away?

Our panel: Sarah Davis-Goff (Tramp Press – Mike McCormack, Sara Baume), Ken Allen (Faction Records, James Vincent McMorrow, Jape etc), Jenny Jennings (Thisispopbaby, Riot etc) and special guests to be announced.

The details: Banter on talent spotters takes place on Wednesday September 27 at The Liquor Rooms, Wellington Quay, Dublin 2. Doors open at 6pm and the event kicks off at 6.30pm-ish. Tickets can be booked here, including a limited number of early bird tickets. Proceeds will go to the Peter McVerry Trust.

Diary dates: other events in Banter’s autumn/winter calendar at The Liquor Rooms will include the constitution at 80 (October 25), imposter syndrome (November 29) and our infamous Review of the Year (December 6). Tickets for all of these will go on sale shortly.

Banter is as pleased as punch to make our debut at Another Love Story – and our debut in Co Meath – on Friday August 18.

For our first outing at the festival, we’ll be hosting Banter Stories, a series of one on one interviews with some very special guests whose work we admire a lot.

Ruth Fitzmaurice is the author of I Found My Tribe, one of the year’s most magical and moving memoirs which is gathering rave reviews and notices. An urgent and uplifting letter to a husband, family, friends, the natural world and the brightness of life, it’s a call to all of us to love as hard as we can, and live even harder. (9pm-9.45pm)

Aoife Dooley is yer wan who taught us How To Be Massive. What began as a web series on life on Dublin’s Northside has become a whole new lease of life for the illustrator, including the How To Be Massive book and the forthcoming guide to How To Deal With Poxes On A Daily Basis. Aoife recently started doing stand up comedy and has already performed at the Vodafone Comedy Festival and supported PJ Gallagher. (8pm-8.45pm).

It’s time for Banter’s annual trip to the seaside. With a bucket in one hand and a spade in the other, we take the Beatyard bus to Dun Laoghaire on August 5 and 6 for a weekend of pow-wows, conversations and encounters. Here’s what to expect at Banteryard 2017

SATURDAY

1pm – meet the family – an encounter with Rusangano Family

The Rusangano Family story keeps getting better and better. After a year in which they released their “Let the Dead Bury the Dead” album and scooped the Choice Music Prize for it, Godknows, Murli and Mynameisjohn join us at Banteryard to talk about the current lie of the Rusangano land, how things have changed since their first appearance at Beatyard in 2015 and what comes next

6pm – meet the legend – an interview with Larry Heard

We talk house music and more with a man who was there when it was all coming together. Larry Heard is the producer behind such seminal house tracks as “Can You Feel It” and “Mystery Of Love”, a musician who has spent his lifetime creating sweet, warm, soulful tracks. A pleasure to welcome Larry to Banter and hear his take on life, music and everything else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeiH9Mm0E5Y

SUNDAY

1pm – UCD Psychology of Media Entertainment Lab

One of the big hits at Banteryard 2016, our friends from the UCD Psychology of Media Entertainment Lab return with more examples of and experiments in how we engage, interact and behave in our everyday lives with technology, media, art and fiction

2pm – The Banter guide to starting a rocking food business

Just what do you need to know about opening your own food business? We’re joined by Colin Harmon (3FE), Conor Duggan (Box Burger) and Sandy Wyer (Forest Avenue) to hear how they went about the job in hand.

4pm – Oh My God What A Complete Aisling!

The most notions Banter ever as we welcome Aisling to Banteryard.  Ahead of the publication of their debut novel about the life and times of a girl from down the country in the big smoke, Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen talk to us about all things Aisling and especially what she would make of Beatyard.

What are the rules for being a man?

Don’t Cry; Love Sport; Play Rough; Drink Beer; Don’t Talk About Feelings

But Robert Webb has been wondering for some time now: are those rules actually any use? To anyone?

Looking back over his life, from schoolboy crushes (on girls and boys) to discovering the power of making people laugh (in the Cambridge Footlights with David Mitchell), and from losing his beloved mother to becoming a husband and father, Robert Webb considers the absurd expectations boys and men have thrust upon them at every stage of life.

Aimed at preserving and promoting Ireland’s natural, built and cultural heritage, National Heritage Week runs across the country from August 19 to 27 and Banter is delighted to be part of this year’s event.

We’ll be hosting a discussion which looks at how nature influences our life, work and the world around us. Poet Mark Roper, Birdwatch Ireland’s Niall Hatch, educator Grace Garde, Dublin city councillor Claire Byrne and author (In Sight Of Yellow Mountain: A Year In the Irish Countryside) and actor Philip Judge will talk about the value of nature, wildlife and heritage to how they live and work.

Banter on nature takes place at the National Print Museum (Beggars Bush Barracks, Haddington Road, Dublin 4) on Thursday August 24. Doors open at 6pm and the discussion begins at 6.30pm. Tickets are available here and all proceeds from the event go to the Irish Peatland Conservation Council.

Many thanks to Niamh Donnellan and Niamh Reynolds at the Heritage Council and Gretta Halpin at the National Print Museum for their assistance with this event.

What will your job look like in 2027? More to the point, will you and your workmates have been replaced by robots?

On our next visit to the Bullitt Hotel in Belfast, we talk about the future of work. The groundbreaking developments in technology and artificial intelligence will inevitable mean many changes, not least for Belfast workplaces in the years and decades to come. Are any our jobs safe from the robots? Indeed, will Banter in 2027 just feature a bunch of robots having a chat about pesky humans?

The details: Banter talks robots at the Bullitt Hotel in Belfast with Adrienne Hanna from Right Revenue; Kevin Curran, Professor of Cyber Security at the University Of Ulster and Philip Brady from Citibank. It takes place on Wednesday July 5 from 6.30pm and admission is a fiver.

Banter returns to Bullitt on Wednesday August 2 during Belfast Pride Festival to talk about LGBT life in Northern Ireland in 2017.

How could we say no to this one? The Stoneybatter Festival takes place across Dublin 7 from Friday June 23 to 25 and they’ve kindly invited Banter to come along to be part of the proceedings.

We’ll be joined by Dublin 7 residents Annie Atkins (graphic designer and prop maker extraordinaire for The Grand Budapest Hotel, Bridge Of Spies and many more), Colin Murphy (journalist and playwright The Guarantee, Inside The GPO etc) and Radie Peat (musician and singer with Lankum and Rue). They’ll talk to us about their work, creativity, inspiration and how both historic Dublin and the contemporary city inform what they do.

The Banter pow-wow will be followed by the JuJu Club Strikes Back, with Stoneybatter’s own Claire Moloney return to the DJ booth with some tunes alongside Jim Carroll (fresh from the DJ retirement home) and Luke McManus.

StoneyBanter takes place at the historic Clarke’s City Arms (Prussia Street, Dublin 7) on Friday June 23 from 8.30pm and admission is a fiver on the door. Big, big, big thanks to Luke for all his help with this event.

We’re very happy to be returing to Bloom, the biggest festival in Ireland, which rakes place in Dublin’s Phoenix Park next weekend. Bloom kicks off on Thursday and Banter will be in situ in our tent in the Food Village on Saturday, Sunday and Monday with a clatter of colourful and fascinating characters for you to meet. Here’s the line-up.

SATURDAY JUNE 03

11am – Nutrionist in the house

Daniel Davey is a performance nutrionist with the Dublin senior footballers and Leinster rugby players, a presenter of TV3’s Doctor In the House and co-founder of online nutrition site FoodFlicker. At Banter, Daniel talks about the role of nutrition on health and well-being and lessons to be learned from the fields of play.

Noon – How do you become the tidiest town in Ireland?

In 2016, Skerries won the award for tidiest town in the country. Maeve McGann and Anne Doyle from the Skerries Tidy Towns Committee tell us about the work, challenges and triumphs which go into running a successful tidy towns’ campaign.

1.30pm – Questions and answers with the Bloom gardeners

Do you have a query for the Bloom show gardeners? Here’s your chance to ask them as Maeve O’Neill and Alan Rudden join us to answer your questions.

2.30pm – And now the weather…

The ins and outs of the weather business and its impact on the national mood with Head of Forecasting at Met Eireann Gerald Fleming and presenter Karina Buckley.

3.30pm – The humans of Bloom

There are thousands and thousands of people at Bloom and is one of them. We get the lowdown on life and everything else from Irish Country Living editor Mairead Lavery

4.30pm – Meet the boss

Bloom would not exist with Bord Bia. The new head of the state agency promoting Irish food, drink and horticulture is Tara McCarthy and she joins us to talk about her job.

SUNDAY JUNE 04

11am – Food on the edge

Besides running such great Galway restaurants as Aniar and Cava, JP McMahon is also behind the annual boutique food gathering Food On the Edge. He’ll be at Banter to discuss his life, career, restuarants and the growth of Food On the Edge.

Noon – The Irish astronaut

Niamh Shaw is an Irish scientist, engineer, performer and artist who also plans to get into space in the next few years. She joins us at Bloom to talk about work around creating interest in science, the need for more youngsters to take up STEM subjects and her very own space program.

1.30pm – Questions and answers with the Bloom gardeners

Do you have a query for the Bloom show gardeners? Here’s your chance to ask them as Brian Burke joins us to answer your questions.

2.30pm – Draw With Don

Don Conroy is the man who taught the children of Ireland how to draw owls when he was the resident artist on The Den. We hear about his life before and after the Den – and there may be even a drawing lesson

3.30pm – My Lovely Horse Rescue

Cathy Davey may be best known as the singer-songwriter behind a string of hits and albums, but she’s here to talk about My Lovely Horse Rescue. Since 2012, Cathy’s charity has helped to recue, retrain and rehome unwanted, abandoned or surrendered horses, donkeys and ponies in Ireland.

4.30pm – Cats vs dogs

Why do people love their cats and dogs so much? We’re joined by Roz Evans from Phibsboro Cat Rescue and Catriona Birt from Dogs Trust to talk about their four legged friends

MONDAY JUNE 5

11am – Gardening for good

More than 50,000 people in Ireland are living with dementia and Elaine Keane, Director of Clinical Services at TLC Nursing Homes, and Sinead Grennan, CEO of Sonas apc, talk about how creating a garden which would be a peaceful space for them and their families resulted in the Bloom Dementia Friendly Garden.

Noon – Anyone for spuds?

Ireland has had a long and illustrious history with the humble potato. Restaurant critic and food writer Catherine Cleary talks us through our relationship with the tuber.

1.30pm – Questions and answers with the Bloom gardeners

Do you have a query for the Bloom show gardeners? Here’s your chance to ask them as Niall Maxwell and Tünde Szentesi join us to answer your questions.

2.30pm – Cavanman of the Year: Neven Maguire

We are very happy to welcome back one of the most popular visitors ever to the Banter stage at Bloom. Neven Maguire joins us with more warm tales and sage advice from Blacklion and beyond.

3.30pm – What are you eating?

Aoife Hearne is the dietician on Operation Transformation. She joins with her advice on eating well without resorting to fad diets – and some insights into why the TV show still pulls in a huge audience.

4.30pm – A guide to gins

We bring together some of the premium gin makers showing their wares at Bloom 2017 to tell us just why the drink is enjoying such a buzz at present. Our ginfluencers: Peter Mulryan (Blackwater Distillery), James McKenna (Listoke Gin) and Keith Malone (Mor Gin).

Tickets for Bloom are available here.

We are delighted to bring Banter to Belfast in June for the start of a monthly residency at the Baltic bar at the impressive Bullit hotel in the heart of the city.

For Banter’s first outing at Bullitt, we’re looking at the sound of the city and asking just what is the current state of Belfast’s musical nation. Many people may still associate the city with past glories like Van Morrison, Good Vibrations and SugarSweet, but the city’s musical machinations move to a much different beat in 2017 as seen by the excellent AVA festival which takes place in early June.

Banter host and producer Jim Carroll will be joined by Sarah McBriar (director and creative producer of the AVA Festival), Jonny Carberry (resident DJ and music creator at Bullit) and Stuart Bailie (music journalist and co-presenter of Across the Line) to discuss what the future sound of Belfast will be, should be and could be.

The first Banter at Baltic at Bullitt Belfast takes places on Wednesday June 7 at 6.30pm. Admission is £5 and tickets can be booked by emailing [email protected]

As part of their Full Stream initiative, Virgin Media will be screening three top class cult films from their catalogue at Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin on Saturday May 13.

It’s a chance for folks to experience Back to the Future, The Big Lebowski and Pulp Fiction in luxe surroundings with bold cinematic sound and a custom-built screen and lighting rig

Before each screening, we’ll be hosting a Banter Short coversation about various entertainment related topics

(1) We’re all cults now (before Back to the Future, 1pm)

Believe it or not, there’s now an audience out there for the strangest of shows thanks to out always-on consumption culture. We talk to Valerie Loftus from The Daily Edge about how the weirdest and most off the walls shows now build and develop their fanbases

(2) TV is the new film (before The Big Lebowski, 4.15pm)

The creator of hit show Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, Stefanie Preissner, and director of programming at TV3, Bill Malone, talk about how the new crop of writers, directors and makers want to work in TV rather than hawk their work to Hollywood

(3) A new world of entertainment awaits (before Pulp Fiction, 7.30pm)

What is coming down the tracks and into your gaff in the next few years? A conversation with TV3 Head of AFP Patrick Kinsella about how new technology, from VR headsets to new ways of packaging entertainment, is going to change your viewing experience

Admission is free but tickets must be booked in advance and are available here