Something For The Weekend – Patrick Bergin's cultural picks
We asked Patrick for his choice cultural picks...
FILM
My favourite film is one called The Fiend Who Walked the West, it is a gothic-horror. I like westerns ,that film had a profound, almost subliminal effect on me as a teenager. It starred Hugh O'Brian as a bank robber and Robert Evans, who provided the persona for the character I played in Sleeping with the Enemy. Don't watch it on your own…
MUSIC
Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan and Get Your Ya-Ya's Out by the Rolling Stones loom large in my favourites, as do Merle Haggard and Leonard Cohen. I sang Anthem for the pope at Croke Park. Kíla are my favourite Irish band, and Elanor Shanley is great! I'm always a sucker for a hairy Irish ballad, Liam Clancy being The Master.
BOOK
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. Tressell is obviously a nom-de plume and the book was a definite step in my appreciation of social issues in literature and art. Fanny Hill as bedtime reading… nuff said! I'm currently reading Terror, Tears and Tragedy by Noel Howard is a fascinating book about my wife Helen Gold-Bergin's grandmother Lady Louisa Morgan Mountcashel, one that encompasses the early suffragettes, the first divorce in Ireland and a court case that enthralled the world.
THEATRE
Philadelphia, Here I Come! by Brian Friel. This was one of the first plays I ever saw with my brother Emmet in it. He sadly passed last year, I had seen him perform in The Eblana, The Abbey and The Gaiety. He was a great and well-known actor. My mother worked in the Green Room at the Gaiety and my father, a Labour Senator helped start The Little Theatre In Carlow, and the theatre is still going strong today.
TV
Like my hero Bob Dylan, I avidly watch Coronation Street and of course I'm loyal to Eastenders! I love Nationwide and travel programmes. High Road, Low Road is also entertaining. I love anything with a train. My grandfather was the signalman at Carlow Station.
GIG
Kíla at the Cloughjordan amphitheater were magnificent. Rónán Ó Snodaigh is simply the best bodhrán player I have ever seen, he literally makes it talk and sing with astounding rhythms. Go see him whenever you get a chance!
ART
I love to visit the Duke Gallery on Duke Street, Dublin. Norman Teeling, Guggi, Graham Knuttel, John Campion, Sarah Langham and Helen Costello's sculptures are amoung my favourites.
RADIO
I will miss Joe Duffy, but I also love his namesake Louise Duffy, and I am hoping she will play one of my songs on her show someday! John Creedon is brilliant, and if I am away from home the BBC World Service's Shipping Forecast is a great comfort.
TECH
Spotify, where I can check up on how my humble musical creations are doing, My duet with Eleanor Shanley, My Angel, gets a respectful number of streams every week, she is great. Simon Casey recorded my song The Tipperary Waltz, too.. Check it out! My music has also been used in a number of films.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Let me think.. I'm delighted to say I have two movies in this year's Galway Film Festival: Sunphlowers, an Irish production, and The Captain, an English production for which I received a Best Actor award in the U.K. We are also working on the Lady Louisa film project, based on the book mentioned above.
All in all I have been busy - on August 8th, I open the King John's Festival in Trim, Co Meath, and this September I am speaking at a brand new event, The Lovely Laois Homecoming Festival, the brainchild of Trudi Lalor, with various events across three days, including talks from myself, Noel Fitzpatrick (Supervet) and many more.
Now, it's time to feed the goats!
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