28 March 2024 The Irish Film & Television Network
     

Irish Film and Television Network

 »

News

 »

Features & Interviews



Writer Enda Walsh on “pushing the form” with ‘The Last Hotel’
11 Apr 2016 : Seán Brosnan
‘The Last Hotel’ airs tonight at 9pm on Sky Arts
The man has conquered film (‘Hunger’, ‘Disco Pigs’) and theatre (Once, Walworth Farce, Ballyturk) but with ‘The Last Hotel’ – airing on Sky Arts tonight at 9pm – writer Enda Walsh has added another string to his eclectic bow by taking on opera too.

A project of incredible originality – ‘The Last Hotel’ is a theatre/opera/film hybrid with a live performance being filmed at the Dublin Theatre Festival (in the O'Reilly Theatre) last Autumn with additional scenes shot in the following months at Bray Head Hotel. It stars Claudia Boyle, Robin Adams, Katherine Manley and Walsh’s long-time collaborator Mikel Murfi. Conducted by André de Ridder, the orchestra is the 12-strong Crash Ensemble, founded by the lauded classical composer Donnacha Dennehy.

“I did not have a clue about opera but I knew I wanted to work with the unbelievable Donnacha Dennehy when he came to me with this idea”, says Walsh, who won the Tony Award for writing the stage version of John Carney’s ‘Once’ in 2012. “It was a wonderfully dark idea about an Irish woman meeting an English couple at this atmospheric hotel in a very heightened and pressurized situation. But you don’t know what is going on initially.”

The film version – produced by Juliette Bonass (‘Glassland’) along with Anne Clarke (Landmark Productions) and Fergus Shiel (Wide Open Opera) - is a result of the Sky Arts Amplify Scheme, spearheaded by Phil Edgar Jones, which was set up to encourage arts organisations and production companies to pitch collaboratively for up to €1,250,000 annually on new TV ideas for the channel.

“It’s a killer channel – we are really lucky to have it”, adds Walsh. “The great thing is that they have a bit of money now so they are starting to make their own stuff. You couldn’t make this for the cinema or even for a normal television channel so it is fantastic to have a channel like Sky Arts take a risk on it.”

It may not be as big a risk as he thinks. The stage version of ‘The Last Hotel’ has so far played at the Dublin Theatre Festival, the Royal Opera House London, the Edinburgh International Festival and St Ann’s Warehouse in New York with critics heaping praise on the project. The Irish Times, The Times in England and The Guardian are among the productions’ champions.

In talking about the triumvirate of creative mediums – Walsh states that ‘The Last Hotel’ has the story to suit all three.

“Opera is so multi-dimensional and feels so charged. It’s a huge, bonkers expression!”, says Walsh, who was nominated for an IFTA in 2009 for co-writing ‘Hunger’. “It really stirs you in a way that many other art forms can’t. It is very suited to a film too – it is kind of Hitchcockian in a way that very important plot elements are revealed late. We are half an hour into this before you begin to get an idea of what is going on! This Irish woman (Claudia Boyle) also has Hitchcockian shades too and we really wanted that nod. The music also has elements of Hitchcock – it’s always in the foreground and always present even in the characters private moments where they look like they are doing nothing. It screams the sub-text out.”

Despite sharing some similarities with the work of the legendary British director, Walsh also states that this is an inherently Irish production.

“I think in a way it is also typically Irish as myself and Donnacha have a very similar sense of humour”, says the writer. “We both also live away from Ireland and I think we share a same outlook on Irish people and writing these stories – mixing in the light chit-chat banality with some really heavy and dark s**t!”

For the award-winning and universally praised Walsh – described by The Guardian in the UK as a “dazzling wordsmith”, writing is a creatively limitless expression and he states that he hopes to push the boundaries even more in the future.

“You want to push the medium and push the boundaries of what you can do. We have made an opera film here so we have pushed the form a tiny bit. I do not have the experience to push the form even further but I think it’s a fantastic start. I think I am going to work with Donnacha on another opera-related project next year and I cannot wait for that.”

It has been six years since Walsh last wrote an out and out feature film – a thriller called ‘Chatroom’ starring Aaron Taylor Johnson and Imogen Poots and based on his own play – but Walsh tells us that he has another film in the pipeline.

“There is a film that I have written and I think it has just been picture-locked actually after shooting in New York. I have no idea what it’s called but I did write it!”

The film is currently entitled ‘Weightless’ on IMDB and is directed by Jaron Albertin and stars Julienne Nicholson and Johnny Knoxville.

‘The Last Hotel’ will air on Sky Arts on Monday, April 11th at 9pm. It will also be available on Sky TV's On Demand service.





FEATURES & INTERVIEWS
“For the industry to grow here, we need more storytellers”, Oscar-nominated producer Ed Guiney discusses Storyhouse
Sharon Horgan, Róisín Gallagher, and Éanna Hardwicke among BAFTA TV Award nominees
Free Industry Newsletter
Subscribe to IFTN's industry newsletter - it's free and e-mailed directly to your inbox every week.
Click here to sign up.






 
 the Website  Directory List  Festivals  Who's Who  Locations  Filmography  News  Crew  Actors
 

Contact Us | Advertise | Copyright | Terms & Conditions | Security & Privacy | RSS Feed | Twitter

 

 

 
canli bahis siteleri rulet siteleri deneme bonusu veren siteler bahis siteleri free spin veren siteler deneme bonusu veren yeni siteler yeni casino siteleri yeni bahis siteleri betwoon grandpashabet