Limerick takes the spotlight in new RTÉ Drama based on Blindboy short story

VIEWERS will get a glimpse of Limerick city on RTÉ2, as Robert Sheehan stars in an adaptation of Blindboy Boatclub’s short story Did You Read About Erskine Fogarty?.

The short drama was produced and directed by James Cotter, who has worked with Blindboy for years on a variety of projects, from documentaries to comedies.

Though this project had a staggeringly quick turnaround - with less than a month between Limerick Live first reporting photos of filming taking place on Henry Street and the drama’s premiere - it has been years in the making.

“As soon as his book came out, we always had it in the back of our heads that some of these stories needed to be adapted for the screen,” Mr Cotter explained.

“Erskine was always one that we wanted to make, and then we started actually writing a version of it more than two years’ ago now, and then we were lucky enough to go to RTÉ and get it, and obviously attach Robbie to it as well.”

Casting Portlaoise actor Robert Sheehan, known for his roles Love/Hate, Misfits and The Umbrella Academy, was “amazing”, Mr Cotter praised, because “even when we were writing it, we were kind of writing it with Robbie in our minds”.

“Robbie is amazing - I’m ruined for other actors. He brings this amazing depth of analysis to his character, and he can convey so much with just the way he looks. You can tell what’s going on inside his character’s mind just by his face, which is class. He’s also just lovely.”

On the fast turnaround, Mr Cotter made it clear that the time pressure was worth it to get the drama produced the exact way they wanted it: “It was a very hard deadline, but it was the only way we could do it with Rob’s availability, so it was a choice: either we film with someone else earlier, or we could do it with Rob”.

“RTÉ were good enough to accommodate us for the dates,” he continued, “so we just went in with a very focused idea of what we needed, and how quickly we needed to do it… But that being said, I haven’t actually had a day off since September sometime!”

After six days of photography, the production crew had a few weeks to edit the piece for TV. 

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One of the things that made that process smoother, Mr Cotter explained, was Blindboy himself, who also scored the drama: “It’s great to have someone like Blindboy, who is just the most creative person you’ll ever meet. Just pumping out stories, music, everything, that makes everything much easier”.

Filming on Henry Street, in the heart of Limerick city, was no mean feat: “For the whole prep time, we were kinda going, ‘are we going to be able to do this?’”.

“It was weird, because like, when Blindboy wrote the story, he set it on O’Connell Street, but O’Connell Street has had such a makeover that Henry Street looks more like 2007,” Mr Cotter said.

“It was the right street, because it’s just an amazing, amazing shot, to just be able to see 500 yards of completely empty street and just Robbie walking up the middle with his fridge.”

Though it was “kind of a mad shoot”, with “a different, kinda slightly weird, slightly tricky thing to shoot” every day, Mr Cotter noted that, “weirdly, because we’d spent so much time focusing on it, filming those scenes were one of the easier things to do”.

“Even though it was, in a way, quite hard to shoot it in Limerick, we wanted to make it in Limerick, because it’s about Limerick, and it’s about towns like Limerick”.

“The great thing about Limerick,” Mr Cotter added, “is that everyone is really sound, and everybody loves Blindboy, so it really helps when you’re able to say this this is a Blindboy shoot”.

A Dublin native and Sligo resident himself, Mr Cotter said: “I’ve been filming with Blindboy in Limerick since, I think 2015, so I feel pretty native to Limerick, I’ll be honest. I’ve spent a lot of time there.” 

“It's a lovely city to shoot in because its size means it’s out in the country and two minutes later you’re in the middle of town. It’s also just quite a beautiful city,” he continued.

Did You Read About Erskine Fogarty will premiere on RTÉ2 at 10:10pm this Thursday, November 14.