This is the Irish economy between the time they came up with the idea for this show and now.
Jesus, those lads in RTE are going to be hard pressed for spots now. Shebeen Chic, Pygmalion and The Market Bar all featured in the first episode of Fade Street. This was more or less marketed as ‘The Irish Hills‘, but my reason for watching it was more an interest in how the city herself was presented, and not the four protagonists.
I’d told a couple of mates I was going to watch this with the aim of a little write-up, and the texts come in thick and heavy. One of the lads is such a student his gaff is tellyless, and he comes down hard on the whole thing. “It’s about as real as The Rock and The Undertaker having a scrap on top of a steel cage” he reckons. Another seems to like it. Facebook is divided.
They’ve done more than borrow a basic idea from The Hills, they’ve basically gone for the exact same plots. God forbid anyone worked in a shop, here we have a couple of interns that are living in a city centre Dublin apartment. Interning, as many students know all too well, is working for free.That ain’t gonna pay the rent. Montrose will.
This isn’t documentary, or mockumentary, but acting-passed-off-as-real-lifeumentary. “Do you want to come in and see the apartment? Sure, follow me” We follow them up the stairs into the new apartment. The cameraman is there before us, and films them coming up the stairs. Likewise, when the boss rings (from the style magazine), RTE have a camera set up in her office. Handy! There is very little ‘real’ about what you’re watching you think.
One thing I do like is the camera work. Dublin looks great here. I can see a good few ‘Come Here To Me types’ (we don’t refer to readers as ‘Come Here To Me types’, swear) watching it for this stuff alone.
Occasionaly hilarious Irish moments feature. One of the cool young things comes from Wexford. Cameras pan to the GAA flag blowing in the breeze, the local boozer, a 1798 monument and a lad on a bike. She’s off to the big shmoke, make no mistake about it. Dublin doesn’t really come across as being all that big of a big smoke however.
There is a complete car crash moment in Pygmalion. “Hi, we’re two random lads who are in a band. Can we plug our band on your fake telly show?” Yeah, fuck it, why not. They all leave their cocktails behind them, and head north of the Liffey to bop about at The Academy. These girls are cool, because they have mates in a band. This is still mildly interesting for me because I’ve spent enough Friday and Saturday nights hanging about the same streets, but older viewers must be wondering what in the name of christ is on telly.
Two years ago, I bet this seemed like a great idea. All has changed, changed utterly. The President of the Union of Students in Ireland was recently on Joe Duffy telling us students can’t afford J1 trips to America anymore (boo fucking hoo) and that times are tough. Times are tough. Much tougher than that. The Celtic Tiger isn’t only dead, her rotten corpse is up some backalley in town. Look out for it in the background on Fade Street. Watching Dublin herself is the only real pull here.
Donal adds: Been interesting to see this get a rake of hits and people of the opinion I’m arguing this show is watchable owing to the camera work. It’s not. One decent feature does not a show make. I hope it’s cancelled and they show paint drying instead next week. We’re all on the same side here folks…. Saying that, I’ll probably end up watching it and giving out about it.
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
Out of interest, came home and skipped through it on the RTÉ player and it close on turned my stomach. What’s the raison detre of this programme? Cheer people up in these dark days by having “beautiful people” on telly show us how awesome their life is? I fully expect:
i) A dinner date in Cornucopia to go horribly wrong.
ii) A night drinking wine in The Snail Bar (we’re young, we’re cool, we drink wine and know where the party is at.)
iii) Plenty of bitching via texts on their IPhones.
iv) A shopping trip to Fallon and Byrne’s / Donnybrook Fair.
v) More shots of them in Pygmalion, surrounded by a select bunch of good looking twenty somethings guffawing and drinking cocktails.
I hate this programme. For shame RTÉ, for shame.
R.T.E.’s inability to think in an Original manner has never been in question. Thinking lacking in originality of any sort is also not confined to R.T.E. or indeed Ireland. Aping new idea’s is an old and trusting method of avoiding taking risks worldwide in Film, on T.V. and will over the next 10 years mainly due to Censorship and media watchdogs such as the FFC in the United States and a sneaky input of covert censorship via Business Psychology and Economic Education (i.e. No hard Life Experience Training and subtle socially repressive modules) destroy whatever originality young people bring to schools and Universities. The descent of the Arts into Advertising friendly computer based nonsense and out of touch Installations of an abstractly inferential nature simply confuses the issue more. T.V. and Art today seems to be based on 2 Main Driving forces. What shocks the most gets through and what sells the most gets fostered. Creating so-called Creative Funnels between University Arts Departments, the Arts Councils and Theatres as places like the Abbey are in the process are currently doing creates a sort of Artistic, Inventive and Creative Famine. New Theatre and T.V.(most of which is written by already reasonably well-established Playwrights and Staffers from R.T.E and such places to begin with has to go through such a tortuous process whereby the Concepts are either blatantly stolen (if they are any good) and re-written by Company Hacks to fit whatever watered down version the Station feels will sell. Reality T.V. is currently adding to the load of dreck that passes for T.V. in Ireland and Worldwide and creating a generation of deluded neurotic obsessive kids that remain kids well into their 30 ‘s and 40’s. No paying so-called Interns also creates a powerful message of “whats the use” and indifference toward any sort of ground-breaking rather than derivative Creative Output and quality creativity that renders working in the Arts as no different to being a kitchen Porter in Burger King.
This abomination is an offence not only against television, but all good taste and decency. At a time when Ireland is about to go bankrupt, and the common man is being forced by a degenerate government to shoulder the financial burden caused by their cronyism and woeful mismanagement, it is simply shocking that the national broadcaster sees fit to peddle such drivel. How dare RTÉ present such obscene abortions to the public? Everyone involved in this outrage deserves to be lashed until they drop.
Let us hope that at least it might spell the end of that Whore of Babylon that is Montrose. If not, I fear it could spell the end for Ireland.
Fade street is most likely a very long ad for a few bars and clubs owned by the same couple of well connected people. It is undoubtedly a dreadful load of horsehit populated by vacuous talentless bores who’s Daddy has a friend in RTE.
I want my licence fee spent on real drama with real actors and writers. Not this lazy crap.
“Fade street is most likely a very long ad for a few bars and clubs owned by the same couple of well connected people.”
I wish I could delete this whole article now for this sentence. A1.