SPILT MILK Recently I got to rewatch Lenny Abrahamson's ' Adam and Paul '. The heartbreaking story of two Dublin heroin addicts, Abrahamson's debut film is a rare example of an Irish director directly confronting the disparity between rich and poor in the age of the Celtic Tiger. A ' Ulysses ' style trek through the Irish capital with two characters who are also like something out of a Samuel Beckett play mixed with Vittorio da Sica's ' Bicycle Thieves ,' 22 years on its humour and shade still hit hard. Sadly, it remains pertinent. The drugs may have changed in Dublin since Abrahamson's film was initially screened but the problems of addiction and homelessness remain. Brian Durnin's period family drama 'Spilt Milk' also deals with addiction in a different way - telling it from the perspective of a 11 year old ' Kojak ' obsessed boy. Set in Dublin in the 1980s when unemployment and immigration gripped the nation, we gradually ...
THE WALSH SISTERS What is it about dramas in recent years with dysfunctional Dublin families? First we had the Garveys in Sharon Horgan's Apple TV series ' Bad Sisters '. Then there we got the Sheridans in Nancy Harris' ITV and RTE collaboration ' The Dry '. Then, of course, there was the murderous Kinsellas in AMC and RTE's gangland drama ' KIN '. Now we've got 'The Walsh Sisters,' RTE's six part adaptation of a series of Marian Keyes' books. At the heart is Louisa Harland's Anna Walsh, a great girl altogether whose life of bliss is suddenly overturned when her American boyfriend, Samuel Anderson 's Aidan is seriously injured in a car crash. Then there's Danielle Galligan's single mum Claire who is struggling with raising a young kid weekdays and sharing custody with her ex husband at weekends while desiring his more carefree life. Stefanie Preissner's Maggie desperately wants to conceive and is trying to do...