Archives: Episode

Banter’s ongoing Living for the City series on living, working and playing in the capital continues to produce some great discussions, including this look at the growth in the city’s new-school cafés. We gathered together a panel of café fanatics – namely Maisha Lenehan from Bibis, Barry Stephens from 147, Aisling Rogerson from The Fumbally and Ketty Elisabeth from the French Foodie In Dublin blog – to talk about where this growthhas come from, what’s behind it and what’s next as taste buds get more adventurous.

All back to Derry where we’d the great pleasure to welcome Lloyd Bradley to Other Voices a few months ago. He’s the highly-regarded British writer on black music from funk to reggae, the author of the compelling history of reggae Bass Culture and, more recently, the man behind the excellent Sounds Like London, a book which looks at how immigrants to the city have shaped black music there over the last 100 years. It was also the very first – and hopefully very last – Banter to feature a guest turn from a cat.

There was a full house at the Twisted Pepper a few weeks ago for our action-packed discussion on the question of Dublin’s creative edge. Prompted by an Irish Times column by Una Mullally which claimed that Dublin no longer had a cutting edge when it came to creativity, our panel – Sinead Kelly from Hunt & Gather, Richard Seabrooke from Thinkhouse and Offset, Dave Smith from MABOS and Una herself – chewed the fat about what’s working and what’s not in the capital city when it comes to artistic and cultural innovation. And, as always at Banter, we’d also some lively contributions from the audience.

Rory O’Connell is the man from Ballymaloe Cookery School, the director of the now annual Literary Festival and the author of the acclaimed and prize-winning book Master It: How To Cook Today. He joined us at the Kinsale Arts Festival in September 2014 to talk about his life and work inside and outside the kitchen.

We’d a very lively and informative discussion around the issue of privacy in our always-on world as part our regular run of shows at the Twisted Pepper in Dublin a few weeks ago. Our panel of Irish Independent associate and legal editor Dearbhail McDonald, 2fm broadcaster Rick O’Shea, The Journal and Daily Edge journalist Fiona Hyde and clinical psychologist Mark Smith talked about everything from Irish Water’s PPS number grab to online anonymity and everything inbetween.

Recorded at Other Voices in Derry, it’s an interview about interviews. Michael Hann, the music editor of The Guardian, joined us to talk about what it takes to get a great interview out of someone. Michael is a man who knows his way around good and bad interviews, and he tells some great yarns about what happens when you press record.

If you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of Irish TV viewers currently glued to Love/Hate every Sunday night, you’ll want to hear this one. Director David Caffrey is the man behind the camera and he talks to us about the road which has taken him from directing films like Divorcing Jack and Grand Theft Parsons to putting Nidge, Fran, Darren, Elmo and the rest of the Dublin rogues’ gallery into our sitting rooms every week. Recorded at Other Voices in Derry in February 2014.

Brian Kerr has appeared on a Banter stage before and we were delighted to have him back for a weekend of sports talks and interviews which happened earlier this year in the Twisted Pepper in Dublin. Hear the former international and club manager and current pundit for RTÉ, Setanta Sports and others talk at length and quite candidly about the trade of the manager.

Today’s broadcast is a special one, even if we say so ourselves. It was recorded in Dingle last December during Other Voices and it features a rare interview with David Arnold ahead of a very rare live show by him in the town. Hear David talk about scoring James Bond movies, Little Britain, Dr Who and Sherlock, working with Adele, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and Bjork, his gig as musical director for the 2012 London Olympics and other matters besides.

This week’s broadcast comes from earlier this year during Banter’s first visit to the Cuirt International Festival of Literature in Galway. Musicians Adrian Crowley, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Nial Conlan from Delorentos were the first members of the Banter Music Book Club as they joined us in the Roisin Dubh in the city to talk about the influence of books and writers on their songs and music.

Recorded at a weekend of sports talks and interviews earlier this year in Dublin’s Twisted Pepper, we were delighted to welcome Sinead Gleeson from The Anti Room to host this discussion about gender politics in sport. Irish women’s rugby team captain Fiona Coghlan and writer, broadcaster and sports fan Elaine Buckley joined Sinead to talk about the issues which women athletes face on and off the pitch.

Recorded at the Other Voices’ tent deep in the woods at the Electric Picnic in Stradbally, this is a Banter about festivals with Electric Picnic and Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn and Other Voices’ supremo Philip King discussing the ins and outs of festivals past, present and future.

We had a huge turnout at the Twisted Pepper last month for Covering the City, our look at media coverage in the capital, as part of the ongoing Living for the City series. Our panel for the night were Niall Harbison, the founder of Lovin Dublin; Ian Lamont, editor of Totally Dublin; Kate Coleman, editor of Le Cool Dublin and James Redmond from Rabble magazine. Over the course of the evening, we prodded and poked how the media cover what’s going on in the city, what Dubliners want from their media about the place they call home and why stuff which should be covered in the capital often is not. A Bantercast which features some lively contributions from the audience too!

You’ll find a full transcript of this Banter at The Quarter – thanks to Mike Ussher for the hard work

Part of Banter’s ongoing Living for the City series about living, working and playing in Dublin in the 21st century, this Bantercast looks at the huge growth in new venues and creative spaces in and around the city. The panel features Orlaith Ross from The Crypt in Christchurch, Laura G Dovn from Block T in Smithfield, Peter O’Brien from Granby Park on Dominick Street and Upstart and Ciara Scanlan from MART in Ranelagh.

A Banter two for the price of one film special. Recorded at Other Voices in Foxy John’s in Dingle, we talk to Gerard Barrett, the Kerry-born director of the fantastic Pilgrim Hill, and to Jack Reynor, the star of What Richard Did and the forthcoming Transformers movie. Sit back and hear two bright young guns of Irish cinema shoot the breeze about film-making, acting, the Hollywood machine, blockbusters, funding, indie film making, farming and much, much more.

What exactly does a newspaper editor do? John Mulholland is the Dublin-born editor of The Observer newspaper and he joined us at Other Voices in Dingle to give us the view from the editor’s office. He talked candidly and at great length about the pressure, hassle, headaches and the good bits too about editing the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.

Shortlisted for this year’s IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Karl Ove Knausgaard was one of our guests at Banter’s series of talks and interviews at Other Voices in London. Karl Ove is the acclaimed Norwegian author whose searingly honest and controversial books have made him very well known beyond his native land. Here, he talked about and read from A Death In the Family and A Man In Love, the first two of six books in his My Struggle cycle.

Say hello to the great Dawn O’Porter. The writer and TV presenter paid a visit to Banter at the Twisted Pepper in Dublin recently to talk about her new book Goose, her love for vintage clothes and a lot of other matters too, as you’ll hear. The interview was hosted by journalist and author Anna Carey.

A special Banter, as we salute the band of 2014 so far, namely the Irish-American trad supergroup The Gloaming with interviews with two of its members.

First, recorded at the Nerve Centre in Derry in February during our visit with Other Voices, we hear from Martin Hayes, the east Clare fiddler who is one of the most influential and inspirational musicians of his geneation.

Then, it’s the turn of his fellow fiddler and bandmate Caoimhín O Raghallaigh. Recorded at Other Voices in London last year, we talk to Caoimhín about his approach to trad, his work with bands like The Gloaming, This Is How We Fly and Triúr and, bonus feature, we also hear a few tunes from him as well.

This Bantercast follows on from last week’s episode with Jon Ronson who talked at great length about Frank Sidebottom and the true story which inspired the forthcoming Frank film.

This time around, we’re delighted to welcome the film’s director Lenny Abrahamson, actor Domhnall Gleeson and music composer Stephen Rennicks who joined us last Thursday May 1 to talk about all things Frank.