As TV3 give it their best daytime soap shot with January’s Red Rock, Paul Byrne talks to the cast playing the rival families causing all the drama.
It’s a big commitment, and a big risk, committing to a long-term TV soap. Just ask the cast behind ‘Red Rock’, TV3’s first serious shot at soap glory, due on our screens in early January.
Not only is there the financial outlay to consider (a reported €7m per annum in this case), but there’s also the time (80 episodes over a two-year period) and the typecasting (quick, what’s Ken Barlow’s real name?).
“There’s always the chance that people will come to recognise you for one big role,” says Paul Roe, a familiar face to Irish audiences with the likes of ‘Adam & Paul’, ‘Kisses’ and ‘Veronica Guerin’ under his belt, “but that’s a risk worth taking. You want people to believe you are the person you’re playing, always. And more importantly, you want to be working. For two years, for five years, for ten years...”
Set in a Dublin seaside town, and driven by feuding families the Hennessys (whose name is on over half of the town’s shopfronts) and the Kielys (whose name is on quite a few court case documents), ‘Red Rock’ has just wrapped shooting in Dublin’s Players Square for the Christmas break. Those initial 80 episodes have already been written, and there’s a few weeks’ worth of episodes already in the can. Which must be a little strange for the cast is to be in the thick of the drama, and have no way of knowing if the audience is embracing your work yet.
“It’s not unlike shooting a movie, in that way,” nods Roe, who plays Vincent Kiely, the head of the family with the neat line in petty criminality. “You just have to play the scene, play the character, as best you can, and believe in what you’re doing. Of course, it would be nice to think that audiences are going to embrace the show, and that they’re going to believe in your character too, but that’s really out of your control. You just do your job, and do it well.”
Cathy Belton - another familiar face to Irish audiences thanks to the likes of ‘The Clinic’, ‘Proof’, ‘Roy’ and ‘Single-Handed’ - agrees.
“I think you have to ignore, to some extent, the expectation, the money involved, the scale of the production, and just believe in the character, and the situation,” says the Dublin-born actress, who plays the matriarch of the wealthy Hennessy family. “It’s the same with every gig, but knowing that you’re going to play this character week after week, that’s actually very liberating. You dig deeper, because you know this character is going to have history. A living history, as it were, because what you do now will affect what you’re doing with the character in six months’ time, in a year’s time. That’s very thrilling for an actor.”
Luckily for Belton, Roe and the rest of the cast, the creators and writers have let them know where their characters are heading, given that the initial 80-episode run has now been written.
“They want to keep a certain amount back,” says Belton, “but they’ve given us a rough guide as to where these characters end up. It helps so much, because you can plant seeds for the future, little signs that suggest those later twists and turns.”
For Denise McCormack - who plays the matriarch of the Kiely family - taking part in a soap is “a chance to be act in a living, breathing thing.” The idea that the actor doesn’t quite know where her character is going to end up is part of the attraction here.
“Normally, with a play or a movie, you know the full arc of your character’s story,” says McCormack (‘Love/Hate’, ‘Raw’, ‘The Centre’), “but here, you kinda know as much as the audience. And that’s thrilling, to have all these possibilities floating around your head. Just as with real life. You keep moving forward, and sometimes it feels like you’re moving backwards, and you can feel great about life one day, and feel it’s the end of the world the next. That unpredictability is all part of life, and it’s great to be able to sense that truly with your character.”
So, Denise puts her hands over her ears when the writers are revealing where the residents of Red Rock will be in the years ahead?
“Oh, I’m happy to get some tips on which direction Bridget Kiely is heading, but I don’t want to know the ins and outs,” she smiles. “I want to be as shocked and delighted as the audience...”
Just how shocked and delighted Irish audiences are going to be with ‘Red Rock’ is an unknown right now. Suffice to say, Ireland doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to soaps, having never produced a ‘Coronation Street’ or ‘Home & Away’ that travelled abroad. Every TV station dreams of having a long-running, home-produced soap though, and TV3 are determined to make ‘Red Rock’ a success.
“The commitment on TV3’s part to making ‘Red Rock’ is hugely admirable,” says Gareth Philips, the show’s series producer-editorial. “This is a big gamble, but TV3 have also done everything right when it comes to creating a good soap. They’ve employed great people, they’ve committed serious money, and time, and effort, to make sure that ‘Red Rock’ gets the best possible shot at being great. And being a success. Right from the start, we felt we’d achieved something amazing, because we got to make this soap, with great writers, great actors, great directors, on this great big set, and, you know, you just feel like a kid in a sweet shop.
“Whatever about the audience figures - and I do think that people will stick with ‘Red Rock’ - we know we’ve made a great show.”
Still, for every ‘Eastenders’ out there, there are far more ‘Eldorados’.
“Sure,” laughs Roe, “but the main difference between ‘Eastenders’ and ‘Eldorado’ is quality. And with ‘Red Rock’, we’ve got quality on our side. Sure, I’m in it!”
‘Red Rock’ launches on TV3 in early January.
