Two of the best home-grown TV shows in Christmas TV schedule are the work of one man – Brian Reddin. On Christmas night, at 10:10pm ‘Robert Shaw - Jaws, Deoch & Deora’ (Robert Shaw, Jaws, Drink & Tears) is screened on TG4 whilst the same channel will also host ‘Suas’ - A documentary exploring the uplifting story of one small village & Viagra on December 29th at 9:30pm.
He joined Neil Delamere on the Anton Savage Show for a laugh-a-minute, anecdote fuelled chat. If you have any interest in movies or celeb stories, treat yourself with a listen to the interview:
Robert Shaw was many things; an Oscar nominated actor, a celebrated author, father of 10 children, husband to 3 wives and a celebrated hell raiser. He battled James Bond in From Russia With Love and a great white shark in Jaws. He won rave reviews for his performance as Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons and was the memorable foil for Redford and Newman in The Sting and made the original (and best) Taking of Pelham 123 with a memorable bad guy turn
He wrote novels, plays and screenplays, appeared in 56 movies and he died on an Irish roadside in a small Gaeltacht community he had come to call home.
LOCAL THROUGH AND THROUGH: Robert Shaw serving pints in his local.
The Christmas night documentary tells the extraordinary story of his adopted home of Tourmakeady in Co. Mayo. He moved there in the early 70’s at the height of his fame with his extended family and set about renovating the former home of a Bishop. When he wasn’t making movies, he became a celebrated local and loved the anonymity Tourmakeady afforded him. He golfed in Westport, fished and swam in Lough Mask, drank and served pints in the local pub, raised both crops and cattle and even offered his home as a temporary school while the local one was being renovated. He employed EVERYONE in the village.
His sudden death at the age of 51 shocked the small Mayo community and the locals as well as his family remember him with fondness to this day.
Meanwhile, ‘Suas’ - A documentary exploring the uplifting story of one small village & Viagra has to be seen to be believed.
For almost 6 months during the early noughties, the small Cork village of Ringaskiddy found itself the subject of news reports from all over the world and the centre of a bidding war between two major Hollywood studios. The reason was a matter of size and endurance and whether the local male population had experienced an increase in both.
There were claims that fumes from a nearby Viagra factory had turned its residents into red-hot loverswith huge mickies. The locals had been inhaling the Viagra dust and now, love was most definitely in the air.
This documentary looks at the months of madness when things started to pick up for the men of Ringaskiddy.
A British screenwriter wrote a film based on the legend which Madonna bought for millions. Then, another movie company became interested in the story.
Film and news crews from as far away as Japan and the US arrived in Cork to chat to the locals about their sexual antics and the locals were only too pleased to feed them a line of banter as long as they kept coming.
This documentary features interviews with all the locals involved in inventing the story as well as the people behind the failed Madonna movie.
