Charlie (RTE1 Charlie Haughey Drama)

The_Captain

jezzer wrote: »

anyone know who was behind the final heave against haughey? obviously it wasnt albert, so in reality albert became taoiseach by default, its strange that bertie didnt grab power when he had the chance, perhaps he knew albert wouldnt last and was prepared to play the long game?

In real life, Bertie and Albert were in cahoots behind Charlie's back. Bertie agreed that he wouldn't oppose Reynolds in a leadership battle on the basis that (a) he kept the Finance portfolio in the new government and (b) Reynolds would name him as his successor to take over as Taoiseach.

arayess

DainBramage wrote: »

The great quote about Bertie being the most cunning, devious etc was mentioned but not developed and still we have no idea how Charlie
or anyone else came to this conclusion.

He said it was cos of his dealings with the unions if I recall.

Firedance

The_Captain wrote: »

In real life, Bertie and Albert were in cahoots behind Charlie's back. Bertie agreed that he wouldn't oppose Reynolds in a leadership battle on the basis that (a) he kept the Finance portfolio in the new government and (b) Reynolds would name him as his successor to take over as Taoiseach.

this was touched on last night too that Charlie was livid that Bertie wasnt taking the role so he wouldn't look like he was beholden to CJ when in fact 'he owed him everything'. Bertie was smart, he knew anyone associated with Charlie would be tarnished so he was biding his time..

26000 Elephants

jezzer wrote: »

anyone know who was behind the final heave against haughey? obviously it wasnt albert,

Why do you think it wasnt Albert? Who else do you think it was?

bazermc

Was the scence in le Coq hardi restaurant suppose to signify the end of the affair between Haughey and Kean

Or did they continue post his leaving office, I am guessing not.

The_Captain

by that stage of his life, it was probably le coq softi

jezzer

The_Captain wrote: »

In real life, Bertie and Albert were in cahoots behind Charlie's back. Bertie agreed that he wouldn't oppose Reynolds in a leadership battle on the basis that (a) he kept the Finance portfolio in the new government and (b) Reynolds would name him as his successor to take over as Taoiseach.

AH yes, i thought so, bertie probably knew albert wouldnt last too long and as shown previously bertie wasnt afraid to play the long game..

but aside from them, and as noted in the show, who dug up the missing arms trial file? doherty wouldnt have done it off his own bat either....

i would imagine keane lost interest in haughey once he lost power

boosabum

I think the Keane affair actually begun after the arms trial had been completed and Charlie was at his lowest in terms of power, i may be incorrect but i seem to remember her saying that once. It seemed to per more about his persona or charm which i guess multiplied when power was added.

K-9

touts wrote: »

Has to be Noel Davern. the "backwoods man" who came from nowhere to become Minister for Education .

Could be, but it seems to be a generic gombeen backbencher. I think the "try the f***ing window" politician was a senator, Paschal Mooney if I'm right, spoke out of turn on the North which Haughey hated.

I thought it might have been Jimmy "Minister for a day" McDaid, O'Malley forced him to resign as Minister for Defence, but McDaid was only just elected at that time.

Overall, it just felt rushed. 6 episodes would have made it much more rounded and fleshed out. Mara stole the show for me, though a bit OTT at times.

K-9

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

I was wondering too about who pulled the trigger. I had always assumed that Albert was behind O'Doherty - apparently not. So who? I was surprised at the idea that it was a dossier on the Arms Trial that forced his resignation. Any ideas about that?

My take on it was, the Arms Trial file was more an example of his past starting to come back to haunt him.

You had scandal after scandal coming out, Smurfit and the Johnson, Mooney and O'Brien site, Carysfort College, Jimmy "Minister for a day" McDaid, Lenihan, Doherty and the beef tribunal lingering in the background as well. His past was finally starting to catch up with him.

Nice mention of the North as well, he gets some credit for starting that and then Reynolds for taking it on and delivering on it.

golfball37

K-9 wrote: »

Could be, but it seems to be a generic gombeen backbencher. I think the "try the f***ing window" politician was a senator, Paschal Mooney if I'm right, spoke out of turn on the North which Haughey hated.

Don Lydon, I'm pretty sure, in real life was the try the window guy.

Tony EH

FalconGirl wrote: »

When you look at the names in that FF Govt, they really were/are a dispicable self serving shower.

P Flynn. C. Haughey, R.Burke, L.Lawlor, B.Ahern just a few to name. We need to always watch our politicians and they must always be held accountable by the electorate that they serve. That is what disheartens me with the current FG appointments and cronyism. Nothing has been learned it seems.

Just watch P.Flynns video when he was on the Late Late. The arrogance has to be seen to be believed.

On the contrary, I think everything has been learned, a bit too well.

:mad:

The_Captain

It's probably just an amalgamation of thicko FF backbenchers not representing any one person

jezzer

yes, 3 episodes didnt do it justice, they had to skip over a lot of stuff, and i see they didnt go into the detail of haughey taking money from the fund set up for lenihans operation and the whole guinness and mahon thing. fantastic show and fantastic acting just such a pity it was only the 3 episodes.

although it showed haughey as a power mad, callious, devious and a guy that couldnt care less, i still thought he came across as funny in his own scolding way, e.g. when he was talking about the world cup, thats a side i didnt know about him, that he was humorous in his own way.
Aiden Gillen can be proud of his acting here...

regarding the traveller from love/hate who in this show became a property developer and the other suited guy in his house, i think they represented general people as opposed to exact figures, both possibly representing both ends of the spectrum, a rough and ready guy who sort of fell into developing and the upper class builder type, but when the suited guy said to the traveller character that charlie is finished and other guys would be coming up, presumably they meant albert, would it have been a case that albert got onto these lads and said look there will be a changing of the guard, you need to be funding us now???

Tony EH

The_Captain wrote: »

It's probably just an amalgamation of thicko FF backbenchers not representing any one person

It's impossible to know who it was that was told to try the window exit, I only heard about that from something Dermot Morgan said.

But, yes, the guy in the program is supposed to represent the average gob****e FF backbench and supporters, who were aware of what was going on but said nothing, because they might get a few crumbs from the table.

spurious

The suggestion that he was the architect of Maggie's downfall - anyone know if there is anything substantive to back that up?

jezzer

spurious wrote: »

The suggestion that he was the architect of Maggie's downfall - anyone know if there is anything substantive to back that up?

not essentially, he had a better relationship with the euro leaders than she did but she was fecked anyway by that stage

Snickers Man

I've got to dissent from the generally favourable reviews of this. I thought it was mediocre. It tried to shove too much into three episodes and, instead of focussing on giving us an accurate dramatisation of Haughey and some of the main people in his life, it seemed to try and cram in as many references to as many incidents as possible.

As a result it had a "design by committee" feel to it. (Don't forget to mention Ben Dunne/Paddy Gallagher/McArthur and as many ministers and backbenchers as possible. Even if it's only for a second and then we don't mention them ever again. WE don't want to make anyone feel left out)

It fell between the stools of trying to portray a narrative of events, a job much better performed by a factual documentary, and some insight into the character and behaviour of the main characters.

The use of music was awful. They would have been far better off with no backing track at all. It added nothing to the production.

I didn't rate the script at all and the acting performances as a consequence were perfunctory and underdeveloped.

That's disappointing because he, and indeed many other Irish figures from history, should be fertile territory for dramatists to explore.

I thought the Guarantee shown on TV3 recently was much better as a drama, despite its apparent budget limitations, causing actors to double up on multiple roles and using really cheapo sets. The scene where Cowan struggles with the new coffee machine, grumbling "What the **** was wrong with instant?" was a little gem. It made a really good allusion to the stress and frustration they must all have been under.

Of course if it had been an RTE production, you'd have all all the relatives ringing up Joe Duffy to say that "They made him look a right eejit, Joe. As if he couldn't even work the coffee machine. It's a disgrace, Joe"

emanresu esrever

Snickers Man wrote: »

I've got to dissent from the generally favourable reviews of this. I thought it was mediocre. It tried to shove too much into three episodes and, instead of focussing on giving us an accurate dramatisation of Haughey and some of the main people in his life, it seemed to try and cram in as many references to as many incidents as possible.

As a result it had a "design by committee" feel to it. (Don't forget to mention Ben Dunne/Paddy Gallagher/McArthur and as many ministers and backbenchers as possible. Even if it's only for a second and then we don't mention them ever again. WE don't want to make anyone feel left out)



That's disappointing because he, and indeed many other Irish figures from history, should be fertile territory for dramatists to explore.



"

precisely this, i have made this point a few times, it was very "event-based". Whilst the dialogue between O Mara and Haughey was interesting there was very little I learnt about Haughey that wasn't a caricature of what society opines him to be. Surely there is more to him than a (rather exaggerated) mimic of his accent, an affair with you know who, the lapdogging he received and the events which surrounded him. I think if you are going to go down the route of trying to include almost every political carreer event listed on his wikipedia page, you need to prolong the series to give ample time to the events whilst also building a more indepth characterisation and dramatisation into how the events unfolded.


Saying that, budgets and actor contract lengths would of made it difficult to
lengthen the series to a few more episodes or even a second series so I guess they made a good stab at it, in that respect. But considering how well it was received (generally) it just feels that it is a case of opportunity lost, both for the production company and RTE, not to mention the actors (and the viewers!). Everyone would have benefited out of a lengthier process IMO

W1ll1s

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Last I heard it had fallen into disrepair

Heard the place had been taken over with Bats :rolleyes:

Reckon there is a lot more episodes in Charlie

Grandeeod

In general I enjoyed the three episodes. I didn't learn anything new, but it was good that Haughey was dramatised in some form. I believe the budget was in the region of 4 million (open to correction) but I couldn't see it on screen.

The two aspects, IMO, that let it down were;

1. The lack of establishing a really decent visual reference of what Ireland looked like during the 3 periods covered. I found the series too confined to its own sets and insular as a result. More outdoor scenes and streetscapes during the periods would have leant more era identity to the production. In addition, it would have been nice to actually see Dail Eireann scenes. I understand that filming in the Dail Chamber would be a no no and the costs of building a set in a studio, would be high. But I have no doubt that it would have added greatly to the production and drama along with the aforementioned streetscapes. If you are going to do historical drama, you really have to think bigger that this drama did.

2. Irish Film/TV suffers greatly from the constant rolling out of actors that are "current". In a small industry, it can influence how we view a production. My first impression of episode one felt like some kind of Love Hate parody coming so soon after the final Love Hate series. Watching the same actors playing vastly different roles in the same show. This kind of thing has being a recurrent problem over the last many many years and I've no doubt it disconcerts viewers.

26000 Elephants

Grandeeod wrote: »

The two aspects, IMO, that let it down were;

1. The lack of establishing a really decent visual reference of what Ireland looked like during the 3 periods covered. I found the series too confined to its own sets and insular as a result. More outdoor scenes and streetscapes during the periods would have leant more era identity to the production. In addition, it would have been nice to actually see Dail Eireann scenes. I understand that filming in the Dail Chamber would be a no no and the costs of building a set in a studio, would be high. But I have no doubt that it would have added greatly to the production and drama along with the aforementioned streetscapes. If you are going to do historical drama, you really have to think bigger that this drama did.

That would make it more of a documentary. It was a drama - it explored the person that was charlie in the context of the various issues he dealt with. It could have been filmed in Prague, and it should have had the same impact.

2. Irish Film/TV suffers greatly from the constant rolling out of actors that are "current". In a small industry, it can influence how we view a production. My first impression of episode one felt like some kind of Love Hate parody coming so soon after the final Love Hate series. Watching the same actors playing vastly different roles in the same show. This kind of thing has being a recurrent problem over the last many many years and I've no doubt it disconcerts viewers.

Apart from a few obvious miscasts, I thought they were spot on. Gillen conveyed the charm that Charlie had - if you knew him, you couldn't but like him. Lawlors' Mara was great, his one liners were legendary and he managed to convey his obvious intelligence. Some of the other characters risked impersonation rather than interpretation, but I think that is only because we know the real characters so well.
As for the love'hate thing, you cant blame them for previous good work...

BuilderPlumber

Grandeeod wrote: »

In general I enjoyed the three episodes. I didn't learn anything new, but it was good that Haughey was dramatised in some form. I believe the budget was in the region of 4 million (open to correction) but I couldn't see it on screen.

The two aspects, IMO, that let it down were;

1. The lack of establishing a really decent visual reference of what Ireland looked like during the 3 periods covered. I found the series too confined to its own sets and insular as a result. More outdoor scenes and streetscapes during the periods would have leant more era identity to the production. In addition, it would have been nice to actually see Dail Eireann scenes. I understand that filming in the Dail Chamber would be a no no and the costs of building a set in a studio, would be high. But I have no doubt that it would have added greatly to the production and drama along with the aforementioned streetscapes. If you are going to do historical drama, you really have to think bigger that this drama did.

2. Irish Film/TV suffers greatly from the constant rolling out of actors that are "current". In a small industry, it can influence how we view a production. My first impression of episode one felt like some kind of Love Hate parody coming so soon after the final Love Hate series. Watching the same actors playing vastly different roles in the same show. This kind of thing has being a recurrent problem over the last many many years and I've no doubt it disconcerts viewers.

I enjoyed seeing Nidge and John Boy enter politics! Yes, a lot of the same characteristics exist between the drug dealer and the politician I have found. King Nidge v King Charlie? Deviousness, rivalry, not resting easy at the top and relations with the IRA feature in both career options for a start. Mara played the same role to Charlie as Nidge played to John Boy ironically!! Yes, the series did feel like Love/Hate at times and all the better for it imo. The backstabbing and tense world of the Haughey era versus the backstabbing and tense world of the Nidge era? Apart from the violence and killing, other issues were very similar!!

BuilderPlumber

26000 Elephants wrote: »

That would make it more of a documentary. It was a drama - it explored the person that was charlie in the context of the various issues he dealt with. It could have been filmed in Prague, and it should have had the same impact.




Apart from a few obvious miscasts, I thought they were spot on. Gillen conveyed the charm that Charlie had - if you knew him, you couldn't but like him. Lawlors' Mara was great, his one liners were legendary and he managed to convey his obvious intelligence. Some of the other characters risked impersonation rather than interpretation, but I think that is only because we know the real characters so well.
As for the love'hate thing, you cant blame them for previous good work...

As said, the similarities between the politician and King Nidge are very similar. AG and TVL were both excellent in L/H and Charlie and ideal for both dramas. Obviously, elements of Nidge came into TVL's Mara and deliberately so. It was excellent to hear some 'Nidge-style' lines planted every now and again and it enhanced things. There was hardly any of John Boy in AG's Charlie though but both roles showed that he could master the complex and troubled characters both were. The relations between the AG and TVL characters were similar in the beginning in both series until the end. Nidge ultimately did John Boy in back in 2011's L/H series 2 but Mara remained loyal until the end to Charlie.

JaseBelleVie

Thoroughly enjoyed the mini-series. Some things could have been fleshed out better. Definitely should have been a minimum of 6 episodes in it, if not more. 6 at a minimum to give the viewing public a better idea of who was who, what was going on, the full scale of the shenanigans that went on in Irish politics at the time, etc.

Disappointed that Pee Flynn and others didn't appear at all, given how crucial they were to Charlie's reign. Not showing the inner sanctum of Dáil Éireann's chambers was another one. Definitely could have benefited from a longer run and a larger budget.

Other than that, a solid, respectable entry into RTE's back catalogue.

FixdePitchmark

it is too soon.

But they could do a Bertie.

Mycroft H

It's been on the shopping list since I head it came out last year, but I picked up Des O'Malleys memoirs there today. They're meant to be decent.

KingBrian2

They should do a series about the early Taoisigh and heads of state. Would be great to see Eoin O' Duffy doing his parade during the Cosgrave years.

LynnGrace

Snickers Man wrote: »

I've got to dissent from the generally favourable reviews of this. I thought it was mediocre. It tried to shove too much into three episodes and, instead of focussing on giving us an accurate dramatisation of Haughey and some of the main people in his life, it seemed to try and cram in as many references to as many incidents as possible.

As a result it had a "design by committee" feel to it. (Don't forget to mention Ben Dunne/Paddy Gallagher/McArthur and as many ministers and backbenchers as possible. Even if it's only for a second and then we don't mention them ever again. WE don't want to make anyone feel left out)

It fell between the stools of trying to portray a narrative of events, a job much better performed by a factual documentary, and some insight into the character and behaviour of the main characters.

The use of music was awful. They would have been far better off with no backing track at all. It added nothing to the production.

I didn't rate the script at all and the acting performances as a consequence were perfunctory and underdeveloped.

That's disappointing because he, and indeed many other Irish figures from history, should be fertile territory for dramatists to explore.

Agreed.

It just could have been so much better. There was a feeling, to me, of, 'let's throw this, this and this into it'.

Just one example, the presidential election, I wondered, where is Pee Flynn and the infamous radio interview. Nothing.

Disappointing, overall. And a lot of the dialogue was unbelievable, in my opinion.

CountyHurler

I heard Geraldine Kennedy talking about Charlie this morning with Colm McCoille.... She said the actor that played her did a good job, but that she was represented as more of a Charlie Bird (i.e. doorstepping everybody), whereas in real life she was merely doing interviews / press conferences / sitting in the Dail public gallery

But the best part was when she was asked about Dermot Nally... She said that there was no way that he would have "ever told Charlie Haughey to F**K OFF" using the f-bomb... .to which Cathal responded "thanks for that"..... :pac: