Writing and Place: Northern Ireland
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Small town life in Northern Ireland is the focus of this conversation about writing and place. Since his debut Divorcing Jack in 1994, Colin Bateman has written many novels, dramas and screenplays and most recently Thunder and Lightning: A Memoir of Life on the Tough Cul-de-Sacs of Bangor. Michelle Gallen’s novels Big Girl, Small Town and Factory Girls have appeared on literary prize lists and they focus on life in a border town. Shahidha Bari, who presents Radio 3's arts and ideas programme Free Thinking is the host of the first in this series of conversations about writing and place to tie into a series of BBC Proms concerts.
Producer: Robyn Read
You can find a collection of conversations about Prose, Poetry and Drama on Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website, all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts. You can find recordings of Michelle Gallen's books available to listen to on BBC Sounds
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can I just say? |
| 0:01.5 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | It's such a wonderful listen. |
| 0:05.6 | So nice. |
| 0:06.5 | There are loads more like it on BBC sounds. |
| 0:08.8 | Different paces, different heights. |
| 0:10.6 | The roof is buckling. |
| 0:11.9 | Where you can also listen to live sports commentary. |
| 0:14.2 | It's right foot goes for goal. |
| 0:16.7 | And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories. |
| 0:21.7 | The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession. |
| 0:25.2 | And she's had to live with that. |
| 0:26.8 | So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion. |
| 0:29.7 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.7 | Sort of expecting that every week now. |
| 0:35.8 | BBC Sounds, music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:39.5 | Hello, I'm Shahid Abari, and in this episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, |
| 0:43.6 | as the BBC Prom has broadcasts a concert from Northern Ireland, I'm talking to two Northern |
| 0:49.0 | Irish novelists, Colin Bateman and Michelle Gallen, about their most recent works and the deep sense of place they evoke. |
| 0:56.2 | They're both comic novelists too, so perhaps that tells us something about what that means to belong to |
| 1:01.2 | and write from this particular part of the world. |
| 1:04.7 | While she was at school, every now and then an American TV crew had come and stand on the bridge. |
... |
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