Roaming through the JNLR jungle

ArtScape:Following RTÉ Radio 1's changes to arts programming late last year, axing Rattlebagand John Kelly's Mystery Train, which caused a bit of an outcry at the time, it's interesting to see how things have fared since. Based on the critical and anecdotal reactions, the afternoon replacement can hardly be seen as an improvement on Rattlebag.

It would be interesting to see how John Kelly's show on Lyric FM, or how the late-night The Eleventh Hourwith Páraic Breathneach, are faring, but the figures in this month's JNLR/MRBI radio listenership figures aren't a great help, as they refer to the entire year 2006, and therefore include nine months of the programmes that were in the slot before either started.

So, for what it's worth: listeners to RTÉ Lyric FM for the 2.30-4.30pm slot, which since October 2006 has been The JK Ensemble, average 35,000, making it the second most popular time-slot/ programme in the Lyric schedule (after Lyric Lunchtime).

A year earlier, in a slightly different time-slot (the entire year 2005, 3-5pm, which covered two programmes, The Music Boxand The Full Score) listenership was at 30,000.

You can't fairly compare figures for a different show on a different station at a different time, but the figure for John Kelly's Mystery Train(RTÉ Radio 1, 8.30-10pm) for the full year 2005, for example, was 22,000 listeners, so it certainly looks like good news.

The RTÉ Radio 1 slot from 11pm to midnight, which since October 2006 has housed The Eleventh Hour, had 16,000 listeners.

A year before that, for the whole of 2005, listenership for a longer time slot (11pm-12.30am, and therefore more 15-minute slots to sample, and including news, sports, Oireachtas report, Book at Oneand Round Midnight) was 28,000.

The station notes that RTÉ Radio does not have a strong tradition of night-time listening and that it wants to develop it.

Convoluted, yes, and the way the figures are gathered and compiled probably raises as many questions as answers. Maybe the parameters should be changed, but that's another issue. In the meantime, the real picture for these programmes will only emerge in November, when the JNLR figures for October 2006-2007, are released.

Much clearer evidence emerges from the figures for RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany(from 9.10am), which continue to climb, increasing by a further 7,000 since the last JNLR figures and bringing the total listenership to 176,000. Producer Clíodhna Ní Anluain feels the breadth and variety of contributions of new writing, along with the eclectic mix of music, is behind the success. Recent programmes have featured Peter Sirr, Eamon Delaney, Michael Harding, Joe O'Toole, Val Mulkerns, Gerard Smyth, Enda Wyley, Catherine Marshall, Pat Kinevane, Niamh Ann Kelly, Ailbhe Smyth, Theo Dorgan, Gerald Dawe and Catherine Foley. From this weekend, the show is available as a podcast at www.rte.ie/radio1.

MacMillan to drive art of Pärt

RTÉ is sticking with the formula for its Living Music Festival for 2008, writes Michael Dervan- put a composer in charge as director, and focus on the work of another composer. But next year's festival will break out in one new direction - the director will, for the first time, be non-Irish. Scotland's best-known composer, James MacMillan, has been chosen to shape a celebration of the work of Arvo Pärt.

RTÉ's departing director of music, Niall Doyle, said: "It was a labour of love to get something of this kind started. The presentation of contemporary music in Ireland needed some event-led centre of gravity. The Living Music Festival was such an event. Rather than being a ghetto it's been a spotlight. I'm sure MacMillan and Pärt are the right people to keep the momentum going." Doyle takes over as CEO of Opera Ireland on April 16th.

Pärt is actually getting a lot of attention from Ireland at the moment. The Galway choir Cois Cladaigh has arranged an Irish tour by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir next September, for which the main work will be Pärt's 90-minute Kanon Pokajanen, which the choir premiered under Tõnu Kaljuste in 1998. The Irish tour, with Kaljuste conducting, opens with a late-night performance in Ballintubber Abbey in Co Mayo (September 21st), followed by visits to Galway, Dublin and Drogheda.

The Louth Contemporary Music Society, the group behind the visit by minimalist icon Terry Riley to Drogheda over the coming May bank holiday weekend, is independently in the process of finalising a commission with Pärt. That could be premiered some time early in 2008, though it's not yet clear if there would be a link-up with the Living Music Festival. Pärt himself is expected to make a first visit to Dublin for the festival.

An Olivier for Bishop Brennan

At the same time as The Irish TimesIrish Theatre Awards were taking place in Dublin last Sunday night, London's Laurence Olivier Awards were also being announced. Congratulations to Jim Norton for winning Best Performance in a Supporting Role in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer(at the Cottesloe), where he played the blind Richard, whose brother returns home to look after him. Possibly best known as Bishop Len Brennan in Father Ted, Norton said after the event "I'm in shock. It's wonderful. It's just an extraordinary play . . . My Grandson, Joshua, who's eight, asked me on the phone today if he can have my job when I retire; I'm going to go and call him now and tell him he'll have to wait a while longer." The production is touring Britain until mid-March.

Best New Play in the Oliviers was won by Blackbirdby David Harrower (at the Albery). Coincidentally, Landmark's critically acclaimed production of the controversial drama, in which a 56-year-old man confronts, 15 years on, the destructiveness of his relationship with a young girl, is running at the Project in Dublin until March 3rd.

The play was originally commissioned for the 2005 Edinburgh International Festival, where it was a big hit, received the Best Play Award in the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland and has had a number of productions since.

Next month its American premiere opens in New York directed by Wicked's Joe Mantello.

Queen's gets room to breathe

Crisis over - for the moment, at least. That's the message coming from Queen's University Belfast, which has given a qualified welcome to the announcement by the Northern Ireland Arts Minister, Maria Eagle MP, of a one-off grant of €150,000 to keep the 2007 Belfast Festival afloat, writes Jane Coyle. The grant is about 50 per cent of the sum requested by Queen's, which expresses regret that it took a crisis to secure this additional investment.

Nevertheless, it acknowledges that the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure grant will go a significant way towards securing this major arts event as an integral part of the cultural life of Northern Ireland .

"During this year I expect to see the festival make good progress towards a business model that more proactively seeks to secure private sector sponsors and maximises income from ticket sales for all events across the programme," the Minister said. Eagle was clear that she does not want a similar situation to arise in a year's time, and requested significant progress in ensuring the sustainability of the festival from 2008 on. "This will require meaningful engagement from all partners and must focus on producing a three-year development plan that contains clearly defined targets and outcomes. This will be a significant piece of work and should commence as soon as possible."

In a statement, Queen's said it hoped that other partners in the public and private sectors would respond by upping their financial support for the 2007 festival and committing themselves to its long-term future. It called for cross-party support for the festival and for the recent ringing endorsement by Belfast City Council's arts sub-committee to be translated into financial investment.

In comparison with this year's funding of multi-disciplinary arts festivals elsewhere on the island, the Belfast Festival at Queen's emerges as the Cinderella. The Dublin Fringe Festival receives €400,000; the Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal €192,000; the Galway Arts Festival €530,000; and Kilkenny Arts Festival, €437,000. The current total revenue funding for festivals in the Republic of Ireland stands at €10,743,500.