Fair City

Fair City
Created by	Margaret Gleason
Starring	List of Fair City Characters
Country of origin	Ireland
Original language	English
Production
Producer	Radio Telefís Éireann
Running time	25 minutes
Original release
Network	RTÉ One
Release	September 13, 1989 – Present

Fair City is an Irish television soap opera, set in the fictional suburb of Carrigstown in Northside Dublin, Ireland. It is the third highest-rating soap opera on Irish television, behind Coronation Street and Emmerdale. The show was created by Margaret Gleeson and its current Executive Producer is Niall Mathews.

The series is produced by Radio Telefís Éireann and was first aired on 13 September 1989. It is broadcast on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8:00pm on RTÉ One. Episodes are repeated at 12:30pm the following weekday on the same channel. The programme is sponsored by FBD Insurance.

Synopsis

Fair City focuses on the ups and downs of the residents of the fictional north Dublin suburb of Carrigstown, although sometimes one-off specials are aired focusing on characters outside the fictional suburb. Examples of these specials include the suicide of a girl being bullied in school, abuse within the Catholic Church, and an insight into the activities of Dublin's crime bosses. Storylines have covered many diverse topics, including abortion, rape, domestic violence, racism, prostitution, theft, kleptomania, arson, drugs, immigration, infidelity, divorce, murder, cancer, bullying, pregnancy, homosexuality, bisexuality, suicide, alcoholism, depression, and death.

Robin and Jimmy

For 18 years, Fair City has remained at the centre of RTÉ One's primetime schedule. The programme is currently shown in four episodes, on four evenings a week on RTÉ One. From 1989 until 2001, it was broadcast 4 days a week between September and May, and 2 days a week between June and August. In 2001, the third and fourth weekly summer episodes were introduced. In 2004, Friday's episode was moved to the Sunday schedule. The series,now airs 4 days a week for the whole year, with an hour-long "special" episode roughly once a quarter.

In 2004, the soap opera celebrated its fifteenth year by broadcasting an hour-long compilation episode entitled Fair City: The Ten Commandments. This episode showed old clips of characters breaking the Ten Commandments. It also featured interviews from the cast and fans. On 30 November 2006, Fair City reached its 2,000th episode, but no "special" episode was aired to celebrate this.

Actors and directors do rehearsals on Saturday and Monday. From Tuesday to Friday, filming in the interior scenes happens between 8.00am and 6.30 pm. In addition to these scenes, on Thursday and Friday exterior scenes are filmed on a purpose-built set on the RT&#xC9 lot, or in various locations in Dublin.

Storylines are written in blocks of 12 episodes. The storyline writers outline the continuation of a story or the start of a new one. The scene breakdown writers develop these storylines into scenes for each episode. The script writers create the dialogue and stage instructions for the actors. The directors accept these scripts, thus producing the storylines of Fair City. RTE has employed hundreds of unemployed people and/or drug addicts as the cast since the show's conception.

Criticisms

Storyline

The storylines of Fair City deal excessively with crime and infidelity. For example, Bob, William and Pierce had affairs with their respective women in 2006. In that same year, drug-dealing was common in "Carol's Club". The antagonist, Lorcan, allowed drug dealers to sell drugs in the nightclub in exchange for half the profits. Lorcan was subsequently killed by an undercover Garda. Fareed murdered two women when they refused to inform him of his son Hanni's whereabouts. Female residents feared for their lives when the Carrigstown rapist was on the loose.

Some critics have pointed out the overuse of gloomy storylines. Although the show is not without its lighthearted stories (examples include Eunice's insistent mothering of her 40+ son, Christy, and the sparky relationship between Dermot and Jo), these are often overshadowed by the gloomy ones.

The dialogue and writing of Fair City is unrealistic. Characters often have boring and predictable lines. Many storylines of the show have been the target of ridicule. Lorraine being killed by a freak hurricane on her honeymoon in Florida, William's relationships with three women at the same time, Malachy's uncharacteristic gambling addiction, Rita's emigration to Australia, and Sergei's constant travel between Russia and Ireland are examples of ridiculous stories.

Other examples of far fetched story lines are to be found by following Barry O Hanlon's storylines. His career development has been erratic. Beginning as headmaster of the local secondary school, Barry left this post when he had to spend time in a psychiatric ward following the infidelity of his partner Sorcha with a student. While there he encountered an old flame, Annette, a local solicitor. Although both psychologically fragile upon exiting the hospital, contrary to medical advice they began a relationship. Annette offered the newly unemployed Barry work at her legal practise, where he was to work as a secretary. However, he quickly became involved in more technical aspects of the work there, so much so that after a number of weeks, Barry was writing an article for a law journal. Barry's lack of legal expertise was a source of annoyance for William and June, the other solicitors working with Annette, and eventually he had to leave his job there. However, all was not lost for Barry O Hanlon as his next job as an investigative journalist was just around the corner.

Some critics have pointed out the overuse of "manipulation" storylines. Rory's manipulation of Carol into giving him information, Bob's manipulation of Renee into getting money from Christy, Tim manipulating Declan into accompanying Olga on every occasion, and Dominic manipulating Kylie into believing that he has changed are examples of these stories.

Fair City has grown complacent and is now abusing its position as the only English language Irish soap opera. Old storylines are recycled and new topics are rarely covered due to budget constraints. The soap opera presents an unrealistic view of life in Ireland and its characters are seen as being old fashioned, thanks to primetime competition from British soaps.

Characters

Critics claim that the characters lack depth. Some female characters are portrayed as lacking in intelligence. For example, Sarah never dumped Rory when he was ignoring her, even after she saw him enter Carol's house at night. In contrast, some male characters are shown to have no conscience. William two-timed his girlfriend Lauren without a second thought and Brendan has never told his wife Heather that he had a one-night stand with Deirdre Burke, who is now the mother of his child.

Characters who leave the show are often killed off or forced to flee Carrigstown. Mondo emigrating to England to avoid getting killed by a hit man, William fleeing to Naas to avoid McAleer's wrath, Yvoone leaving the country to avoid getting arrested for a hit and run, and Danny being assassinated outside a hospital are examples.

There are too many characters on the show and the series would benefit from concentrating to a greater extent on the core cast. The quality of stories can be inconsistent with some stories dragging on too long while others come to a conclusion when there still seems much to play for. While there are progressive sub-plots, there is no continuous storyline linking them all together. As a result, characters often drop out of the series for months and suddenly reappear with no explanation as to where they were. Sometimes new characters are not properly introduced to the viewers, as they seemingly appear out of nowhere.

The acting of Fair City has also met some criticism. Most actors have only done theatre work prior to appearing on Fair City. With the exception of Joan O'Hara, they give a wooden performance on television.When the actors leave the show, they have high hopes of breaking into the UK acting world and landing their ideal job. They soon find themselves struggling to continue their careers when they audition for the role of characters, as their wooden performances become apparent at auditions. As a result, the actors end up doing theatre work or reprising their roles on Fair City. For example, George McMahon, who plays Mondo O'Connell, is concentrating on theatre work, but he has reprised his role for the time being.

Fair City has been criticised for encouraging teenage drinking. Whenever a character has an achievement, friends celebrate with alcohol. Cally Mathews, the study author of The Food Magazine, said: "Soap shows are awash with scenes showing alcohol being consumed as part of a seemingly healthy lifestyle and appearing as a normal part of everyday life." A spokesperson for Alcohol Concern claimed that drinking and getting drunk is protrayed as being risk-free. This contradicts the campaign against binge drinking and drink driving in real life, as teenagers could be desensitised to the dangers of alcohol.This is supported by the fact that Ireland has the highest rates of binge-drinking in the European Union.

Some characters are forced to change their personalities in order to develop new storylines. Kylie forgiving her father Dominic for beating her up and intimidating her, Nicola befriending Niamh after they despised each other for years, Rita emigrating to Australia to accompany her daughter Louise (she dislikes going abroad), Malachy having a gambling addiction which vanished weeks later, and TJ following his grandparent's orders after disobeying them a year before are examples of these stories.

The parenting of children in Fair City has attracted a lot of criticism. The mothers and fathers can seemingly spend hours in buildings drinking alcohol or coffee. No mention is made of babysitters minding the children, so the viewers assume that they are at home alone. Critics believe that the show presents an unrealistic view of parenting and sets a bad example for real-life parents.

Despite the above criticisms of Fair City, it has consistently high ratings. The viewing figures for each episode are around 500,000 - 600,000 and rising as high as 700,000 for specials. It has proven particularly popular with viewers outside of Dublin and continues to draw significant audiences into its 18th. season. Critics believe that the other Irish soap opera, the Irish language Ros na Rún on TG4, is of higher quality, although Fair City has 10 times the viewership. They argue that the acting on Ros na Rún is much better, there is a reasonable number of characters on the show, and its storylines are not dropped for several months.

Suburb buildings

Carrigstown has a wide variety of buildings, including:

• McCoys - a pub (owned by Kay McCoy and run by husband Malachy Costello)
• The Garage (owned and run by Jimmy Doyle and Paul Brennan)
• The Shop - a general grocery shop (owned by Christy Phelan and Mike Gleeson and run by Christy)
• Taxi Cabs - a taxi firm (owned and run by Leo Dowling and Tim Deasy)
• The Bistro - a restaurant (owned and run by Mike Gleeson)
• Fusion - a restaurant (owned and run by Ken Fahey)
• Rainbows - a small cafe (owned by Rita Doyle and Mike Gleeson and run by Bela Doyle)
• The Bazaar - a hardware store (owned and run by the Udenzes)
• The Surgery (owned and run by Brendan Daly)
• The Haven - a hairdressers (owned and run by Dolores Molloy)
• The Shelter - a drop-in centre (owned and run by Malachy Costello)
• The Galley - a pub (owned and run by Carol Meehan)
• Carol's Club - a nightclub (owned and run by Carol Meehan)

Awards

The programme was nominated for an IFTA as 'Best Television Drama' in the years 2000 and 2003. Stuart Dunne, who portrayed Billy Meehan, was nominated for an IFTA as 'Best Actor in a Television Drama' in 2003.

Pat Nolan, who plays Barry O'Hanlon, won a Golden Rose Award, in the 'Best Soap Actor' category, at the international Rose d'Or Festival in Switzerland on 7 May 2005.The series has also been nominated two times for a TVNow Award as 'Favourite Soap'.

Trivia

• In 2005, Marty Whelan made his acting debut in Fair City playing himself. He did the grand opening of the re-constructed McCoy's pub, which was destroyed in the Christmas of 2004.
• Every year, RTÉ announce the Fair City competitions. The winners are allowed to visit the set of Fair City and play the roles of non-speaking background characters on the soap opera.
• The opening sequence and theme music has been changed three and two times, respectively.
• Fair City is the only soap opera in Ireland which is produced in the English language.
• With the exception of Sunday's episode, each episode ends with a trailer for the next one.
• The programme makes use of Northern Dublin dialect. Examples include "I'm only messin' wih yah" and "me ma".

External links

• Official Fair City RTÉ site
• Fair City at IMDb
• Fair City at TV.com