Bringing a city-wise film crew to the wilds of the Beara peninsula in West Cork for three months was always a risk, but it seems to have worked in the case of Falling For A Dancer, the new series starting tomorrow on RTE. At a lunch held to celebrate the series in Newman House on Monday, one of its stars, Liam Cunningham, recounted how at least two crew members never left after filming ended, and live there still.
Indeed, another of the actors, Dermot Crowley, who was born in Cork but has worked in London for many years, is in the process of buying a plot of land near Eyeries.
Liam himself didn't get quite as attached but seems to have struck up a rapport with the film company involved, Parallel Films. Just the night before, he was at the wrap party for Wild Horses, another film from Alan Moloney and Tim Palmer, the head honchos at Parallel, which also produced the recent adaptation of Amongst Women. Cunningham's other baby is Sweety Barrett, a film directed by Stephen Bradley, which hasn't been released here yet, but has been accepted by the Toronto Film Festival and is in competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Another cast member with new attachments to the Beara peninsula is the young leading actress Elisabeth Dermot Walsh. Although born near Kent, her father Dermot Walsh was an Irish-born actor. "He insisted he show me all the sights when I was younger but I was in a pushchair so I don't remember too much of it," she says. "I've been back six times since filming finished, though. I love it." She was particularly pleased to get her first Irish acting gig in Co Cork, as this was where her father first worked with Maureen O'Hara.
Elisabeth herself has been kept busy since the filming of Falling For A Dancer. She just completed a second series of the BBC sitcom, Unfinished Business, with Art Malik. "I play the horrible bitchy daughter," she grins.
Of course all these people falling in love with the Beara peninsula could have been scripted by Deirdre Purcell, who wrote both book and screenplay, as she has long been a fan of the region where she and her partner, RTE executive Kevin Healy, have a home. Deirdre is now hard at work on the screenplay for her most recent novel, Love, Like, Hate, Adore. There's also another screenplay on the go as well as a a novel she says she hasn't "touched for months". (See Weekend 5)