Latest news with #Irish-Australian
Metro
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
You can now binge all 4 episodes of 'achingly sad' BBC drama
If you didn't get your fill of tearing up at Jim Sturgess in 2011's One Day, he has a new heartbreaking romance to fill the hours. Mix Tape has arrived on BBC iPlayer this week, with all four episodes of what has been described as a 'perfect summer treat' now ready and waiting. The show sees Sturgess's Daniel reunite with Alison (Teresa Palmer) years after they dated as teenagers, with plenty of nostalgic needle-drops (Joy Division, The Cure). The four-part Irish-Australian drama follows two timelines: Alison and Daniel (with Florence Hunt and Rory Walton-Smith as their younger selves) as lovestruck teenagers in the 1980s and the pair in the present day after they went their separate ways. In the former, we see Dan first spot Alison from across the room at a house party in Sheffield. As you did then, they get to know each other over – show title incoming – mix tapes, hence the many good music cues. Those feelings first sparked in the 80s lie unresolved in the present day and the show becomes a question of whether these crazy no-longer-kids can make it work as adults instead. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Based on Jane Sanderson's novel of the same name, Dan has wound up a Sheffield-based music journalist while Alison is a bestselling novelist living in Australia. Dan sends Alison a friend request years later and the pair reconnect, to touching results. Filmed on location in Sydney and Dublin, Mix Tape won the South by Southwest film festival TV Spotlight Audience Award this year. The show was described as 'the perfect summer treat' by the BBC's head of programme acquisitions Sue Deeks, ahead of the romance's arrival on the Beeb's streaming service this week. The show already aired in Australia earlier this year, after which viewers shared their emotional response to Alison and Daniel's story. Taking to Google reviews, Dale Jordan described the show as one of 'achingly sad themes' and said it had been 'beautifully made'. More Trending 'Gatsby-esque hope and longing – highly recommended,' they wrote. Justine Thorneloe wrote to say they had already finished the series and that the fourth and final episode left them 'in tears'. 'Heart warming tale that stretched across time and continents, complimented with an outstanding 'mixtape', reviving memories of times past,' wrote Matthew Farrelly. View More » Mix Tape is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Gary Lineker tops BBC salary list again with over £1,300,000 paycheck after controversial exit MORE: Nadiya Hussain claims BBC 'will keep you till you're of no use to them' MORE: BBC asked John Torode 'to resign and blame mental health' after racism allegation
The 42
15-07-2025
- Sport
- The 42
'I'm an Irish-Australian, more than an Australian who's Irish'
IT'S NO WONDER that Ruaidhrí Murphy has made a success of coaching in Japanese rugby. He has embraced a nomadic sort of lifestyle from the beginning. Murphy was born in Dublin but moved with his family to Australia at the age of two. 12 years later, they returned to Ireland. He came through the Leinster system, then moved to Exeter before shifting to Australia again. Two years later, he was back on Irish soil with Ulster, but fast forward another couple of years, and Murphy was Down Under again. It makes sense that the coffee shop he and his wife, Celeste, own in Canberra is called Nomad. 38-year-old Murphy is coaching with Suntory Sungoliath in Tokyo these days, but he and his family are regular visitors back to Canberra, where he played and coached with the Brumbies and still has the coffee shop, a house, and a car. He was on Aussie soil last week along with a couple of other Suntory coaches. They were in with the Waratahs and then Stephen Larkham's Brumbies, observing both sides' preparations to face the touring Lions. That meant an opportunity to sit down and discuss what has been an intriguing journey in rugby and life so far. 'I'm an Irish-Australian, I would say more than an Australian who's Irish,' said Murphy in a quiet hotel café in Canberra. 'Heart is probably Irish, but this here is really familiar. You don't feel wrong here at all, or foreign here or fake here, not pretending when we're here, it feels like home as well. It's a weird mix. 'But yeah, I would say we're Irish-Australians, not the other way.' It was his father's work as an electrician that started the love affair with Australia in 1989. Oz was booming and there was a shortage of tradespeople and nurses. The Murphys went to a fair at the RDS and jumped at the opportunity, moving to Perth. 'That became home,' said Murphy, who was 14 when his parents decided to go back to Ireland. They had both lost their fathers and it was a case of 'now or never.' Murphy playing for Lansdowne in 2008. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO Murphy loved being around his cousins but didn't like it in Irish school when they moved home to Arklow in County Wicklow. Things settled when he went off to boarding school at Castleknock College in Dublin. He had played more rugby league and baseball in Australia, but Murphy started to make a name for himself as a loosehead prop with Castleknock, playing for Leinster and Ireland Schools before featuring in an excellent Ireland U20s squad that won a Grand Slam in 2007. 'It was a great group,' said Murphy. 'You had people like Cian Healy, who was locked in and was going to develop quickly.' The U20s forwards coach, Dan McFarland, tried to convince Murphy to come across to Connacht on a senior contract, but he opted for an academy deal with his native Leinster. He never got a senior debut for his province but learned huge amounts from being in the Leinster set-up in the years before they took the step to winning their first Heineken Cup in 2009. 'I guarantee it's still the same today, the academy's elite,' said Murphy. 'There's an ethic, there's a standard because you might have your three-year cycle in the academy, but you've got to earn your progression through that cycle. There's no given there.' Advertisement With Healy fast-tracked, Ollie Le Roux there, and CJ van der Linde coming in at loosehead, opportunities were scarce and Murphy decided to move to Exeter, then in the English Championship. He helped them get promoted to the Premiership and stay there, before the Brumbies popped up. Current Wallabies assistant Laurie Fisher, who was on his way back to Canberra from Munster, made the connection. He had noticed the Irishman with an Aussie accent. Murphy jumped at signing for an 'iconic' team like the Brumbies. It was an exciting time. Jake White had taken over in the wake of a disastrous 2011. Murphy was one of 16 new players. Aled Walters, the Lions' and Ireland's head of S&C, was there. Larkham and Fisher were on the coaching staff, and Dan McKellar was involved too. 'Jake put in world-class people to make systems and processes and expectation,' said Murphy. 'And then he obviously left because he got another bigger calling, but the foundation was laid and it was never let go.' Murphy playing Super Rugby for the Brumbies. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Murphy excelled to the point that he was briefly being discussed as a possible Wallabies call-up, even though he was classified as a non-Australian player despite living there for 12 years as a child. It was 2014 when the call came from Ulster. The idea of being back home in Ireland near his family was hard to resist. Murphy had just turned 27 and it was an interesting move at the time. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. 'It was a bit of a mess,' said Murphy. 'I signed for Mark Anscombe and David Humphreys, and when I rocked up, they were both gone.' Murphy missed pre-season because the Brumbies made the Super Rugby semi-finals and was always playing catch-up. His second season started more promisingly but then he broke his hand twice and that proved to be the end of his playing career. 'My hand's still busted, it never became 100% again,' said Murphy. 'I broke my finger and paralysed the hand, so I can't close my fist. For a front rower… 'For the first year, if I accidentally knocked it against anything, it would blow up. I saw a surgeon back here after we came back and I was trying to get her to cut it off. It was that bad.' The whole experience back in Ulster left Murphy mentally scarred. Forced into early retirement, he felt he was done with rugby altogether. He and Celeste had just got engaged and their plan was to 'rip into life' in Canberra. In hindsight, though, Murphy was probably always destined to be a coach. He feels fully at home in this profession. 'I'm a super diligent person,' he said. 'I'm on the edge of OCD, planning helps me. I've been that way apparently since I was born. Like, line up cars, sort out my own uniforms, I was self-sufficient across organisational stuff.' He was also a very technical, thoughtful player. 'I had to be fit, strong, and technical because I wasn't naturally an angry player. 'I didn't have natural pig and anger, I wasn't in your face, it wasn't my game ever. You play a nasty position, so I had to find a different way to do it. 'And I reckon you probably need that at an elite level, it probably held me back. I was the best Monday to Friday. I probably didn't have enough good Saturdays.' Murphy was with Ulster from 2014 to 2016. Presseye / Matt Mackey/INPHO Presseye / Matt Mackey/INPHO / Matt Mackey/INPHO Being around the likes of Michael Cheika, Rob Baxter, White, Fisher, and Larkham rubbed off on him too. It was the Brumbies who gave him the chance to coach, initially working with their U20s. As he launched the coffee shop, Murphy also began coaching with the Gungahlin Eagles, Mack Hansen's club, then he was involved with the Canberra Vikings in the now-defunct National Rugby Championship before two happy years as an Australia U20s assistant coach. Murphy threw himself into coaching, taking every opportunity to improve his craft, something he continues now with coaching development visits to clubs around the world, as with last week's trip back to Australia. He ended up getting the Brumbies' scrum coaching gig in Super Rugby and loved being there until the Japan chapter opened in 2020. The Ricoh Black Rams in Tokyo needed a young, energetic forwards coach and there was a two-year offer on the table. The Brumbies wanted to keep Murphy but head coach McKellar told him it was an offer they couldn't match. The Covid-19 pandemic made the initial stages of life in Japan difficult, even if the Murphys and their first daughter, Alana, got to Ireland at one stage. 'We were the only people on the plane from Tokyo to Dublin,' said Murphy. 'I can't tell you, it was the weirdest experience. 'Just the three of us on the plane with the cabin crew. It was so strange.' Last year, Murphy made the short move across town to Suntory Sungoliath, one of the biggest clubs in Japan, and is enjoying the experience of working with top-class players like Sam Cane and Cheslin Kolbe. 'The only thing acceptable at Suntory is winning,' said Murphy. His parents and two siblings have enjoyed visiting Japan on a couple of trips from Ireland, while Murphy's own family have integrated wonderfully into Japanese life. Alana is now six-and-a-half, her brother Geordan is three, and little Ronan arrived in February of this year. Murphy at training in Tokyo Suntory Sungoliath Suntory Sungoliath 'We've got no support in Japan, it's us,' said Murphy. 'And in Japan, it's trains everywhere, up and down. The kids love it. They say they want sushi for dinner or they want to go eat ramen. 'Alana speaks Japanese, goes to school with Japanese kids, they just crack on. My wife, if she didn't like it, it would be hard. But she loves it there. It's safe. The old Irish way, we can send Alana to the shop to get something, no problem.' Murphy himself understands how moving around when you're young gives you a resilience and an openness to the world that never leaves. His family back in Ireland remain hopeful that Ruairidh's journey has another twist ahead, one that brings him back home. He's not someone who has a great master plan, although he'd love to be involved in a World Cup at some stage and feels he could manage the step up to being a head coach in the future. 'Long story short, if something came up for me to do in Ireland, my family would beg me to take it,' he said. 'And we would love to, what an opportunity.'
Tom's Guide
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
How to watch 'Mix Tape' online from anywhere
Daniel and Alison meet as teenagers in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in 1989 and fall in love as teenagers he sends her a "Mix Tape", hence the name of this four part Irish-Australian drama which critics are calling a 'sweet, intense romance'. Here's how to watch "Mix Tape" online from anywhere with a VPN — and potentially for free. "Mix Tape" is already available on Binge in Australia. It arrives in the U.K. and U.S. later this year.• Australia – Binge 7-day free trial• U.S. — Date TBC• U.K. — Summer 2025 on BBC iPlayer • Watch anywhere — try NordVPN 100% risk free And so it plays out, over four episodes, between Sheffield (where Daniel has remained as a music journalist) and Sydney (home to best-selling novelist) Alison. When social media provides the means to a reconnect, it becomes instantly apparent that something is still very much alive in the relationship. Both are married to other people (and have children), however. Ah. While two people who are meant to be (or were they?) wrestle with the situation we get slick flashbacks and flash forwards and, of course, a brilliant soundtrack. One quibble, please can we have some legislation to stop "Love will Tear Us Apart" being included in every other film or TV series? It just about escapes here given the title and crux of the show but it's ubiquity is killing its importance. Read on to find out how to watch "Mix Tape" (2025) online, on TV and from anywhere. TV drama "Mix Tape" premiered on Binge in Australia on Thursday, June 12. It is still available to stream. Abroad? Don't panic you can tune in back home on your usual domestic streaming platform by using a VPN such as NordVPN. Thanks to the wonders of a VPN (Virtual Private Network), "Mix Tape" should be available no matter where they are. The app allows your devices to appear to be back in your home country regardless of where in the world you find yourself. Our favorite is NordVPN. There's a good reason you've heard of NordVPN. We specialize in testing and reviewing VPN services and NordVPN is the one we rate best. It's outstanding at unblocking streaming services, it's fast and it has top-level security features too. With over 7,000 servers, across 110+ countries, and at a great price too, it's easy to recommend. Get over 70% off with this NordVPN deal Using a VPN is incredibly simple. 1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite. 2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're away from Australia and want to view Binge, you'd select Australia. from the list. 3. Sit back and watch the show. Head to Binge to watch "Mix Tape" online and on-demand now. You can watch a 2021 film called "Mixtape" but not, as yet, this 2025 four-part Irish-Australian drama. There is no release date for the latter (and far superior) production. If that changes you'll read it here first. However, if you are a Brit in the States for work or on vacation you will be able to catch the show by using a VPN such as NordVPN, choosing U.K. from the list and selecting BBC iPlayer. If you live in the U.K. then you can catch "Mix Tape" when it arrives on BBC Two this summer (2025). It will also be available to stream on BBC iPlayer. You'll find out the release date here first. You don't have to miss it if you an Aussie exiled abroad because you can unblock Binge and watch all four parts now with a VPN. We recommend NordVPN. As with the U.S., "Mix Tape" has no release date in the Great White North as yet (and it's not the same "Mixtape" on Netflix). However, if you are an Aussie in Canada for work or on vacation you can catch the show on your own domestic streaming platform by using a VPN such as NordVPN. Episode 01: In Sheffield in 1989, teenagers Daniel and Alison meet at a house party and bond over their shared love for music. The relationship they forge that night follows them forever. Episode 02: Daniel and Alison's relationship deepens through mixtapes, but Alison hides a secret. Years later, Daniel revisits her, wondering if she's still the same woman. Episode 03: In 1989, Alison's home life goes from bad to worse as she takes on caring for Peter. In 2015, Daniel struggles with Alison's revelations of what occurred during their relationship twenty years ago. Episode 04: In 1989, Daniel is left reeling and heartbroken due to Alison's sudden disappearance. In 2015, a surprise betrayal takes Daniel by surprise, but he has to fight for what he loves. It is. The acclaimed novel of the same name was written by Jane Sanderson and published in 2020. You can buy Mix Tape on Amazon (Kindle, audio book, hardcover and paperback). Lots – including Wimbledon, "The Settlers", "Strike: Ink Black Heart", "Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special", "Call The Midwife", "Doctor Who: Joy to the World", "Strictly Come Dancing", "Outnumbered" and plenty more. We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
Irish Independent
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Irish-Australian tennis player James McCabe to play at Wimbledon
Irish-Australian tennis player James McCabe beats Tomas Barrios Vera of Chile at Roehampton to qualify for Wimbledon.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
What to stream this week: Teresa Palmer's Gen X drama and five more to add to your list
Our picks this week include an Australian-Irish romantic drama, an Agatha Christie adaptation starring Matthew Rhys, and documentaries about an eccentric football legend and U2's Bono. Mix Tape ★★★ (Binge and Foxtel) Mix Tape is all about the wonder. First love, favourite songs and inescapable heartbreak are the building blocks of this Irish-Australian romantic drama. Ricocheting between past and present, the teenage protagonists and their middle-aged successors, these four hour-long episodes have an inexorable momentum. It's not subtle, but it's effective. Yes, the plot forcefully pushes these characters into bitter circumstances, but there's also a deeper recognition that sometimes a gesture, or an unspoken decision, or a great song, can add more than carefully crafted detail. Loading Sheffield, England, 1989: lanky teen Dan O'Toole (Rory Walton-Smith) sights high school classmate Alison Connor (Florence Hunt) across the room at a house party. New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle is playing: 'I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue.' Cut to the present day and Dan (Jim Sturgess) is a music journalist, still based in Sheffield and married with a son to Katja (Sara Soulie), while Alison (Teresa Palmer) is getting far more sunshine in Sydney, mother of two daughters and married to surgeon Michael (Ben Lawson). Why aren't they together? When will they get back together? Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart is obviously cued up, but this adaptation of Jane Sanderson's 2020 novel knows, as does the viewer, that Dan and Alison are meant to be together, both as a means of healing and a wellspring of happiness. Their children are mostly leaving home and their partners are slightly off – the emphasis Michael puts on the 'my' in 'you're my wife' lingers uneasily. 'You never forget the boy who makes you your first mix-tape,' Alison tells her daughter, Stella (Julia Savage), which means more once Alison explains to her Spotify-era child what a mix-tape is. Loading Irish writer Jo Spain (Harry Wild) and Australian director Lucy Gaffy (Irreverent) treat love and longing as a magnetic force. It draws the teenagers together, with montages and shared reveries that come with an impeccable soundtrack – Psychedelic Furs, The Church, The Cure – and immaculate production design for the adolescent bedrooms. There's a degree of nostalgia, which some will happily succumb to, but this Gen X mix of Nick Hornby and Nancy Meyers (Alison's home has Bondi Beach views) also liberally applies tragic circumstances, especially in Alison's case, to divide the young lovers. There are tendrils of other shows, including the reckoning with unspoken trauma, the meaning behind a midlife crisis and the technical wonder that was a dual cassette deck, but fulfilling kismet is the goal. And when that happens, shared gazes and the right song do the job. Towards Zero ★★★½ (BritBox) To its last collective breath, the BBC will be producing Agatha Christie adaptations. The late author is a murder-mystery franchise that cannot be killed. The question is how they can defy, or at least tweak, tradition. This three-part update of Christie's 1944 novel tries a few diverse gambits, which surprisingly mesh. There's a stellar cast, led by Anjelica Huston (Transparent) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans), but also structural adjustments and a knowing celebration of cliches. Loading As conveyed by a fateful opening monologue, Rachel Bennette's adaptation wants to track how the many suspects came to be assembled in the Devon mansion of bedbound tyrant Lady Tresillian (Huston), and their torturous connections. The key crime isn't the plot's inciting incident, it's a culmination well after the introduction. By then you've studied tennis star Nevile Strange (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), his new wife Kay (Mimi Keene), and his former wife Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland). Add suspicious cousins and creepy servants, too. With incitement from director Sam Yates, the plot leans into period scandal – a courtroom collectively gasps when Kay is labelled a 'gold digger' – and throwback designer chic. It would be all too wink-wink if the investigating detective, Inspector Leach (Rhys), wasn't dishevelled, depressed, and disinclined to believe anyone. Leach's professionalism, like the show, has a wilful streak. It's not clear that solving the case will save him. Pernille (seasons 1-5) ★★★★ (Netflix) Here's a stealth winter watch. A slice-of-life Norwegian comic-drama that takes in bittersweet lows and everyday hopes, it follows child-welfare worker Pernille (Henriette Steenstrup, the show's creator), a single mother juggling two demanding daughters, a demanding career and, frankly, several other demands. It's a messy, matter-of-fact life – Pernille neglects herself at times while trying to help others, copes in good and bad ways, and reveals a sardonic worldview. One Mississippi or Better Things are points of comparison but Pernille feels more connected to everyday struggle. It's a show that's doing exactly what it wants. Bono: Stories of Surrender ★★★ Apple TV+ Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik (Chopper, Blonde) continues his music documentary arc, switching from Nick Cave to U2's frontman for this filmed performance of the singer's 2023 one-man show. It's a mix of memoir, focused on Bono's childhood when he was still just Paul Hewson, and the salvation U2 afforded him after teenage losses, matched with stripped-down versions of the band's hits. It's revelatory in a sense but Bono has long been a master of rock'n'roll mystique, and that's maintained by Dominik, whose black-and-white images reverently cloak Bono. Ange & the Boss: Puskas in Australia ★★★½ (DocPlay) Ange is Ange Postecoglou, the recently sacked Australian manager of English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur, whose initial playing career at South Melbourne FC included a stint as defender, driver and translator – from Greek to English – for Ferenc Puskas, the Hungarian legend who was the best player in the world in the 1950s prior to Pele's ascent, before enjoying a nomadic managerial career that brought him to Melbourne in 1990. This is a joyous sports documentary about Australia's migrant heritage, footballing philosophy and an idiosyncratic giant of the game. Rick and Morty (season 8) ★★½ (Max) An adult animated comedy created by Community's Dan Harmon and the since-departed Justin Roiland, Rick and Morty has become one of television's enduring cult series. It has a good-sized and furiously devoted audience – the reason it has now reached its eighth season – but it can also repel first-time viewers as it cartwheels through the cosmic mishaps of mad scientist Rick Sanchez (Ian Cardoni) and his press-ganged grandson Morty Smith (Harry Belden). I have tried with this show repeatedly and fallen short as its madcap verve can drift into the self-referential, but it's not going anywhere.
