Download: 11 – Sex Toys

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Download: 10 – Drugs

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Download: 9 – Age Gaps

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Download: 8 – Bedroom Confessional

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Download: 7 – Sex Education

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Download: 6 – Squicks, Icks, Turn Ons and Turn Offs

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Download: EP5 – Love & Lust on Screen

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Download: Episode 4 – Stripping Tales and O Woes

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Our guest is artist and Berlin flaneur Constantin Montana. 

We discuss… 

The differences between gay life in Berlin and New York. 
How the internet changed hookup culture.
Comparing our sexual educations.
The effects of porn on kids.
The death of subcultures
Differences between dating in gay and straight cultures
‘The chat’
The glorious sluttiness of actors
Meeting ‘the one’.

Download: Episode 2 – The Good Old Gays

Find us on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Feedburner

Meet us on: Instagram, Discord

Everybody Wants to Love You is a new podcast about love, sex, and the things that get left unsaid. Hosted by former comedian Gareth Stack and one time actress Nicole O’Connor, the show features interviews, listener problems and intimate uncensored discussions of sexuality in the age of chaos.

Download: Everybody Wants To Love You – Episode 1

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Download: Why do people kill? Psychology in Mind Episode 6
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Read: Show Notes

A new series in which psychologist Dr Andrew P. Allen and writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, turn to psychology for answers about our minds, brains and personalities.

We’ll be exploring the topic of murder – more specifically spree killings. Joining us is Dr. Robert King of University College Cork. Rob’s  controversial work uses evolutionary and anthropological perspectives to examine the ultimate motivations behind human violence and sexual behaviour.

In a wide ranging discussion we examine the status protecting evolutionary motivations behind ‘spree killings’ by ‘spare males’. Rob’s work has identified two separate populations of spree killers, older men who have ‘failed’ in keeping their families together and younger socially isolated men. We also discuss Hybristophiles – the women who fall in love with killers, including spree killers like James Holmes. Other topics touched on include the headhunters of Borneo, Mira Hindley’s nazi fixation, Margaret Mede, the Shankill Butchers, lynchings, and ‘non violent’ tribal cultures, ‘an heroes’, and Gregory Stanton’s 8 Stages of Genocide.

Questions Explored

Do we live in a particularly violent time?
Have spree killings really increased? Or were they underreported in the past?
Do media depictions increase the amount of spree killings?
How does psychopathy interact with wealth and power from Gengis Kahn to Wallstreet traders?
How has the concept of psychopathy evolved – from Cleckley’s the Mask of Sanity to Hares Psychopathy Checklist to the DSM definition of anti-social personality disorder, to John Ronson’s Psychopath Test?

References

● Hive Mind (Rob’s Blog at Psychology Today)
● Mass Killings: An Evolutionary Perspective
● Deficits in fear conditioning in psychopaths 
● Frequency dependent selection in psychopaths 
● The demonisation of evolutionary psychology, as typified by Cordelia Fine’s ‘Testosterone Rex’ 

Download: Are Psychedelics good for us? Psychology in Mind EP5
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Read: Show Notes

A new series in which psychologist Dr Andrew P. Allen and writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, turn to psychology for answers about our minds, brains and personalities.

Todays Question: Are Psychedelics Good For You?

Psychedelic drugs, are they the gateway to greater self knowledge, an enhanced appreciation of the natural world, and deeper empathy and interpersonal connections? Or merely a risky doorway into schizophrenia and mental illness? Today we look at some of the psychological research into psychedelics and speak with Alexander Lentjes of the Irish Psychedelic Society. Can we have a productive discussion, or will the incommensurability of academic psychology and psychedelic consciousness reduce us to gibbering stoned apes. Find out in the latest episode of Psychology in Mind.

Links to Things Discussed

• David Nutt Controversy
• New Thinking Allowed
• Stephen Wolfram’s New Kind of Science
• Alexander’s Blog
• History of Psychedelics in Medicine
• Metta-Bhavana (Loving Kindness)
• Graham Hancock – Plant Consciousness and Psychedelics
• What Psychedelics really do to your brain
• The Power of Myth (now on Netflix)
• Cynical 4D Cinema Review
• Psychedelics & Psychosis
• Set & Setting
• Esalen
• Eternal September

Credits

Presented by Gareth Stack and Andrew P. Allen. Music by Marc Remillard.

Logo rendered in Blender, based on Brain by dgallichan, Bulldog smoking pipe beyondmatter and Felonous Fedora by Jacob Ragsdale.

Download: Psychology in Mind – Episode 4
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Read: Show Notes

A new series in which psychologist Dr Andrew P. Allen and writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, turn to psychology for answers about our minds, brains and personalities.

Todays Question: Are People Irrational?

In everyday life we have make many decisions. We can gather exhaustive information relevant to the topic, or we can use a mental shortcut or “heuristic”. Since the 1970s psychologists have studied not just how we think, but how our thinking fails. How limits to human memory, processing speed and other cognitive capacities shape our problem solving, and creativity. In this episode of Psychology in Mind we take a look at the problem solving shortcuts native to the human mind, and examine how they both limit our ability to think rationally and enable us to think faster than we otherwise could.

Credits

Presented by Gareth Stack and Andrew P. Allen. Music by Marc Remillard.

Logo rendered in Blender, based on Brain by dgallichan, Bulldog smoking pipe beyondmatter and Felonous Fedora by Jacob Ragsdale.

Download: Mic Drop

Mic Drop is a new one off drama, starring Adam Tyrell, based on the play that debuted to critical acclaim at the ‘Scene + Heard’ Festival in Summer 2017. This one-man show tells the story of Irish web entrepreneur Perry Pardo. Perry is the living embodiment of the new Ireland. A working class boy made good, Perry moved to San Francisco to make his fortune, and now he’s back to teach a room full of eager listeners how to replicate his success. This satirical business seminar rapidly descends into a dark exploration of contemporary Ireland, as Perry’s hard partying catches up with him and he undergoes a breakdown – revealing his background and failings through fragments of story and song. In the process Perry reveals the anxieties and hypocrisies that can underlie the success stories of Irish entrepreneurship, and the dark side of wealth.

Credits

Perry Pardo – Adam Tyrell
Writer / Director – Gareth Stack
Sound Engineer – Brendan Rehill
Script Editor – James Van De Waal
Lyrics from ‘Monto’ by The Dubliners
Audience – Seamus Stackpoole, Frances Galligan, Shane Connelly, Nicole O’Connor, Kenny Stapleton, Dominik Turkowski.
Music – Ariel Beat, Myuu, Marc Remillard and Audio Jungle.

Sound Effects

• S: Door Open Close Heavy Wooden Medium Creak Seal Theatre by LampEight | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Radio Static by GowlerMusic | License: Attribution
• S: Washing mashine, centrifugue by ohrpilot | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Whirl by GirlwithRecorder | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Pushing through curtain or cloth 3 by JakLocke | License: Attribution
• S: hearth fire / light by jarokoco | License: Attribution
• S: Feu .wav by Slanesh | License: Attribution
• S: Fire_Crackles(No Room).wav by Krisboruff | License: Attribution
• S: Cave Fire by barrygusey | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: calm orchestral band 02 140928_0418.wav by klankbeeld | License: Attribution
• S: Wind at door howling 4.wav by Bosk1 | License: Attribution
• S: tappingMic.wav by susychristiansen | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: microphone_feedback4 by zerolagtime | License: Attribution
• S: card on plate.mp3 by Joseph999 | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: sim phone ring.wav by THE_bizniss | License: Attribution

Download: The Listening Stage

Each year, legendary radio dramatist Roger Gregg teaches a unique intensive course in radio drama. The Listening Stage follows students of The Gaiety School of Acting’s radio drama course, as they pursue their hopes and dreams of fame. This fly on the wall doc embeds us in Roger’s annual weeklong workshop, introducing actors to the exciting world of audio theatre. The course culminates in a live performance of a radio comedy. We follow the crafting of this production from initial script reading to rehearsals, to the development of sound effects and music, the creation of memorable characters, all the way through to the final performance. Taking a look, for the first time ever, behind the curtain of this legendary drama school’s radio drama workshop.

We’ll join the students as they learn to tailor their voices for the microphone, create characters, and explore an astounding array instruments and old school practical sound effects.

We’ll follow the student’s journey, learn about their backgrounds and ambitions, their dreams and hopes for the future. Joining them as they discover how sound and music punctuate and amplify the dramatic and comedic effects of performance, tempo and suspense. This will be a unique journey into what it means to be an actor and an exploration of the oldest form of recorded storytelling as it exists today. Finally we’ll hear excerpts from the student’s final production, recorded live at a performance in the Boys School Theatre in Smock Alley.

Writer / Director Gareth Stack’s previous documentaries include ‘Getting into the Game’, an introduction to videogame development aimed at school age children; and ‘Mad Scientists of Music’ an exploration of experimental alternative music in Ireland.

Credits

Music – Mattia Cupelli, Sad Piano Music, Jos Lis – various.

Clip from ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’, and ‘The Party’, fair use for educational purposes.

Clip from original recording of ‘Whose Afraid of Rottwang Krell’ used with permission.

With thanks to the Gaiety School of acting.

Special thanks to Roger Gregg and Gaiety School of Acting Class 2017.

Starring:
Ailbhe Cowley, Aoife Martyn, Aoife O’Sullivan, Ben Thompson Caroline Mathiasen, Danaja Wass, Darragh Byrne, Eadaoin Barrett, Eoghan Collins, Gemma Kane, Hana Leigh, Jack Mullarkey, Jessica Leen, Gilly O’Shea, Leigh Douglas, Maureen Rabbitt, Niall O’Brien, Roisin Rankin, Tara Cush, Thommas Kane Byrne.

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Download: Psychology in Mind – Episode 3
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Read: Show Notes

A new series in which psychologist Dr Andrew P. Allen and writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, turn to psychology for answers about our minds, brains and personalities.

Todays Question – Is Psychology Unethical? We take a dive into the history of ethical abuses within the discipline, discussing infamous experiments like the Milgram Obedience Studies, Harry Harlow’s monkey attachment research, and the Stanford Prison Experiment. We also take a look at how psychology has been applied unethically, in programmes like the CIA’s MK Ultra research, in ‘conversion’ therapy with gay people, and more recently as part of the American black site torture programme. Has this history of ethical abuses made psychology too cautious today – blocking useful avenues of research? Or, by contrast have we yet to atone and do enough to prevent future ethical controversies.

Finally we’ll discuss the process researchers need to go through today to have their studies approved.

Credits

Presented by Gareth Stack and Andrew P. Allen. Music by Marc Remillard.

Special thanks to Richard Roache.

Logo rendered in Blender, based on Brain by dgallichan, Bulldog smoking pipe beyondmatter and Felonous Fedora by Jacob Ragsdale.

Probably my final two radio productions (at least under the sound and vision scheme), were both completed last year. By coincidence they’re both coming to air really soon.

Download: The Listening Stage and Mic Drop Trailer

Each year, legendary radio dramatist Roger Gregg teaches a unique intensive course in radio drama. The Listening Stage follows students of The Gaiety School of Acting’s radio drama course, as they pursue their hopes and dreams of fame. This fly on the wall doc embeds us in Roger’s annual weeklong workshop, introducing actors to the exciting world of audio theatre. The course culminates in a live performance of a radio comedy. We follow the crafting of this production from initial script reading to rehearsals, to the development of sound effects and music, the creation of memorable characters, all the way through to the final performance. Taking a look, for the first time ever, behind the curtain of this legendary drama school’s radio drama workshop.

Broadcasts: Saturday March 31st: 9pm, on Newstalk 106-108 FM.

You’ll also be able to stream the show from Soundcloud, or download it from the Dead Medium Podcast right after broadcast.

Mic Drop is a new one off drama, starring Adam Tyrell, fleshing out the play of the same name that debuted to critical acclaim at the ‘Scene + Heard’ Festival in Summer 2017. This one-man show tells the story of Irish web entrepreneur Perry Pardo. Perry is the living embodiment of the new Ireland. A working class boy made good, Perry moved to San Francisco to make his fortune, and now he’s back to teach a room full of eager listeners how to replicate his success. This satirical business seminar rapidly descends into a dark exploration of contemporary Ireland, as Perry’s hard partying catches up with him and he undergoes a breakdown – revealing his background and failings through fragments of story and song. In the process Perry reveals the anxieties and hypocrisies that can underlie the success stories of Irish entrepreneurship, and the dark side of wealth.

Broadcasts: Tuesday 17th April at 2PM, on Phoenix FM.

You’ll also be able to stream the show from Soundcloud, or download it from the Dead Medium Podcast right after broadcast.

Download: Psychology in Mind – Episode 2
Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.
Read: Show Notes

A new series in which psychologist Dr Andrew P. Allen and writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, turn to psychology for answers about our minds, brains and personalities.

Todays Question – Can we trust our memories?

Our guest today, Dr Richard Roche, neuroscientist and Senior Lecturer at Maynooth University Psychology Dept.

Credits

Presented by Gareth Stack and Andrew P. Allen. Music by Marc Remillard.

Special thanks to Richard Roache.

Logo rendered in Blender, based on Brain by dgallichan, Bulldog smoking pipe beyondmatter and Felonous Fedora by Jacob Ragsdale.

Download: Psychology in Mind – Episode 1 – Creativity
Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

A new series in which psychologist Dr Andrew P. Allen and writer and broadcaster Gareth Stack, turn to psychology for answers about our minds, brains and personalities.

In this episode we discuss creativity. What is creativity? Is it possible to become more creative? Do people innately differ in how naturally creative they are? How do we measure creativity? Why did creativity evolve? Can animals be creative? And is creativity good for us? 

Credits

Presented by Gareth Stack and Andrew P. Allen. Music by Marc Remillard.

Logo rendered in Blender, based on Brain by dgallichan, Bulldog smoking pipe beyondmatter and Felonous Fedora by Jacob Ragsdale.

Show Notes

Download: The Free School

The Free School, Dead Medium Productions’ new documentary about Ireland’s first ‘Sudbury Valley School’, broadcast this morning on Newstalk. Wicklow Sudbury is an experiment in alternative education, bringing ‘free schooling’ and ‘unschooling’ to Ireland. You can stream the programme above, or download at our podcast link below. It will also be rebroadcasts at 10PM on Saturday 18th November.

More information – Sudbury Valley Schools, the free school movement, the history of alternative education [PDF].

Special thanks to all the staff and students at Wicklow Sudbury School, including Aaron, Ciara, Sonja, Isthara, Mia, Kashmira, Rick, Fionn, Ed and Faye; and to the national school students featured at the beginning and end of the programme Sophie, Conor, Emma, Aoibhin, Tadhg, Donal and their parents Clare and Keith; to Joanne Lane who was kind enough to speak to me while visiting Wicklow Sudbury; and to Emer Nowlan of Educate Together, and environmental educator Joesph Campbell.

Download: The Free School Trailer

Think back, what were your least favourite parts of school? Maybe math, maybe physics, maybe you just hated gym. Now imagine a school where you didn’t have to do anything you didn’t want to. A school with no exams, no homework, no classes, not even any teachers. What if I were to tell you that not only does that school exist, it’s right here in Dublin, in a regular semi-d near the cold unfinished boom era monstrosity of the Sandyford industrial estate. This documentary explores a year in the life of Ireland’s most unconventional school, ‘Wicklow Sudbury’. This radical form of schooling has been running in the United States for almost fifty years, but can it work here? We follow the first few months of the fledgling school. Listeners will meet students, staff and parents, and explore what they found lacking in conventional education. In the process we’ll see just what Irish education can learn from The Free School.

Wicklow Sudbury School is an experiment in alternative education, attempting to apply the principles of ‘free schooling’ and ‘unschooling’ in the Irish context. The first ever term has recently begun, and right now the school consists of eighteen students of all ages, learning together.

Free or democratic schools are organised around the principle that students should take a lead in deciding their own educational path. These schools take a radical approach to encouraging free thinking and agency in their students. Free schools offer an alternative to mainstream education. They share an emphasis on child-centered learning: Seeing the learner as an active participant who choses his or her own course of study.

For many Wicklow Sudbury students the mainstream educational system has been a failure. They or their parents haven’t found the education they’re looking for in standardised classes and subject based classes. Instead they’ve chosen a school with no classes, no subject, no homework and no teachers. We follow their first few months in the school and learn how radical education works in Ireland in practice.

Broadcaster: Newstalk 106 – 108fm
When: Sunday 12th November at 8AM, repeated at 10PM on Saturday 18th November.
Online: Podcast or soundcloud.

Download: The Bee Loud Glade – EP1 – Gerry Murphy

To subscribe to this series and lots more from Roger Gregg, check out the brand new Crazy Dog Audio Podcast

The Bee Loud Glade Cabaret is a series of twelve bite-size programmes bringing some of the best of the contemporary Irish spoken word scene to radio. Each episode will showcase one beautifully produced spoken word performance, and one ‘backstage’ interview, featuring emerging & established Irish poets. The series represents an exciting new approach to poetry on radio in Ireland, mixing studio performance, music and soundscapes, to recreate the excitement of the live poetry scene. It will bring poetry as a living spoken form to a new audience, and promote the work of a new generation of emerging and contemporary Irish artists. The Bee Loud Glade will take the word off the page and reimagine it using original music and soundscapes. Created for RTE Lyric FM. Funded by the Broadcast Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee.

Download: The Art of Television

The A.R.T of Television is a historical comedy about censorship, set in the early years of Irish TV broadcasting. A time when government and church fought young broadcasters struggling to innovate on the nation’s fledgling television channel. American writer Claude Chabert lands a job on the early Irish soap opera ’Home Farm’. Claude finds himself trapped between the political pressures and rigid censorship of late 1960’s Ireland. Attempting to kill the show, he resorts to improbable storylines rooted in Irish mythology, creating an unexpected hit. Now Claude must balance the demands of crafty civil servants, a meddling church and an unruly cast.

Claude Chabert is a Madison Avenue hack, knocking out scripts for TV advertisements and drinking on the job. Fleeing the manipulative, artistically bereft world of advertising, Claude comes to Ireland to write the great American novel.

Alas, jobs are not ten a penny in 1960’s Ireland, and Claude is forced to take a position as show runner on flagship An Radió Teilifís (A.R.T) Irish soap opera Home Farm. The programme’s previous producer – the gamine firebrand Maureen Masterson, has recently been demoted due to her insistence on broadcasting socially relevant plots that anger the establishment.

Confronted by the withering censorship requirements of Irish television, not to mention the pressure to appease advertisers, Claude is even more frustrated than he was in the US. He decides to kill the show, by making its plots ever more ludicrous. Claude deliberately introduces events and characters from Irish mythology into his scripts – in a deliberate effort to plummet the ratings. The resulting show is an unexpected critical and commercial success. The more over the top he makes the story, the more successful Home Farm becomes. Critics view the new approach as a clever postmodern commentary, while audiences can’t wait to see what happens next.

Credits:

Special thanks to Lynn Simpson & Derek Byrne at Phoenix FM.

Written and Directed by Gareth Stack

Additional Material by Seamus Stackpoole.

Roisin Rankin as Laura O’Mahony, Banshee, BBC Presenter

Music by Roger Gregg

Sound recording and sound design by Brendan Rehill.

Download: The Muse Unbidden

The Muse Unbidden is an exciting one off drama from Roger Gregg, one of Ireland’s most influential radio dramatists. The play, a success on stage at the Collaborations festival in Smock Alley theatre in 2012, follows a group of would-be poets enrolled in a performance poetry workshop led by a charismatic and unconventional teacher. Using music and dream diaries, the participants are cajoled into finding and surrendering to their personal muses. As the workshop progresses they travel a rollicking odyssey of confession and self-revelation, giving voice to their obsessions, desires, wit, pain, and memories. For some their uninhibited self-expression leads to joyous catharsis, for others to grief and loss. The play satirises the world of performance poetry, blending music and poetry to create an original and entertaining programme. This satire on modern poetry and self-discovery, written and directed by Roger Gregg features original musical score performed and recorded by a cast of multi-talented actor-musicians.

The show revolves around the artistic journeys of five students and one teacher: each embodying an archetypical poetry workshop attendee. Mags is confused about her marriage, Liz suffers from anger problems, Hillary believes herself to be next in line for Heaney’s throne, Cathy is experiencing depression, Theo thinks he can change the world. Their identities are in flux during the ten weeks we are shown of their course; as they grow and change and develop through their creations. Peter, the teacher, is passionate to the point of being overzealous. His fear and under-qualification to deal with people’s emotional trauma is something all teachers can relate to.

The students each struggle with finding and taming their muse: in most cases, the muse takes the form of their desires and demons – leading them to something they need in their lives which is much greater than a piece of poetry. The Muse Unbidden addresses poetry as therapy. Poetry allows people to work through their conflicts and emotional issues.

Anyone who has attended a poetry workshop or facilitates one, or even maybe only picks up a pen from time to time will find something to relate to. Even listeners who’ve never written before will be lured in with the promise of what might become if they dare reach out to their muse. The Muse Unbidden explodes with energy, and fearlessly touches sore areas of Irish culture’s attitude to canonical poetry in ways that might sting but will leave listeners thinking.

CREDITS: ‘The Muse Unbidden’ was executive produced by Gareth Stack, writing / direction by Roger Gregg, recording by Colette Kinsella. The cast were Morgan Jones, Tiernan Kearns, Angel Hannigan, Sinead Fox, Katie McCann, Karen Ardiff and Roger Gregg. Music by Roger Gregg.

Funded by the Broadcast Authority of Ireland with the television license fee.

Download: ART Trailer

Dead Medium Productions Presents ‘The A.R.T of Television’!

It’s winter 1968, the long hangover after the Summer of Love. A.R.T is Ireland’s finest, and indeed only television station. But the nations flagship soap ‘Home Farm’ is failing as viewers frog march towards the satanic protestant seduction of the BBC. American ad man Claude Chabert is hired to turn the show around. With help from TV chaplain father Terry O’Mahony and feminist firebrand Maureen Masterson can Claude raise the ratings? Or will he fall prey to the machinations of sinister Controller of television Carvel Kiddler? Find out in The A.R.T of Television, a totally made up and completely fictional, not true at all, not even a little bit historical comedy about censorship, stupidity and Irish television. Coming to Phoenix FM and Soundcloud soon!

Dead Medium Productions history

Dead Medium Productions, founded in 2009, is an independent producer of drama and documentary. We have released numerous radio and podcast series. We have produced programmes for Newstalk, RTE Lyric FM, Radiomade, Dublin City FM, and Near FM. Our previous series include ‘Choices’ a surreal comedy about mental health, ‘Any Other Dublin’ a satirical look at the death of the Celtic Tiger, dark cold war drama ‘The Wall in the Mind’, and ‘Mad Scientists of Music’, an award winning documentary about experimental Irish music.

Writer / Director

Gareth Stack is a writer who develops work for radio, theatre and screen. Gareth Stack is a writer, director and pioneering Irish podcaster. In 2005, while senior producer at Trinity FM, he co-created the first Irish internet TV show ‘Technolotics’. Since then he has developed numerous radio documentaries, dramas and podcasts for channels like Newstalk, RTE Lyric FM as well as local and regional radio. Including the award winning series ‘Mad Scientists of Music’, which explored the Irish experimental audio scene. He has worked as arts correspondent for programmes like Culture File & the Dave Fanning show, developed programmes for digital channels like Radiomade, and served as communications officer for the Association of Independent Radio Producers Ireland (AIRPI). Gareth currently teaches courses in Podcasting & ‘Storytelling Through Sound’. Recently he has begun creating work for stage. His last play ‘Mic Drop’, received great reviews at the Scene & Heard festival.

Starring legendary radio actor / producer Roger Gregg!

Roger Gregg is an award winning playwright, composer, audio-producer and actor. Over the past 25 years he has written for Crazy Dog Theatre, Dublin Youth Theatre, TEAM, The American National Audio Theatre Festival, Graffiti Theatre, The Razor Edge, Oberon Theatre and The Gaiety School of Acting. His plays have also been produced by New York University, the University of Missouri, the Theaterpedagogisches Zentrum in Nuremberg, Germany. His Crazy Dog productions have won many international awards including; 3 American Mark Time Science Fiction Awards, 2 Ogle Fantasy Awards and 2 AUDIOFILE Golden Earphone Awards. In 2006 in a special feature reviewing his work, BBC Radio 4 hailed him as ‘one of a handful of truly great radio dramatists’.

Cast

Roger Gregg as Claude Chabert.
Sebastian Connellan = Carvel Kiddler
Seamus Stackpoole = Brendan O’Riordan / Miley O’Cumman
Gareth Stack = Eamon Chabert, Felix (in Sales), A.R.T News Anchor
Tara Cush = Shiela O’Riordan / Maraoid O’Common, Selkie
Niall Bruton = Alan O’Riordan / Ciaran O’Dowd
Thommas Kane Byrne = Fr Terry O’Mahony, Fiacra, Irate Reader
Pamela Flanagan = Maureen Masterson / Lug
Roisin Rankin = Laura O’Mahony, Banshee, BBC Presenter
Aislinn O’Byrne = Saoirse Chabert, Bridget Minerva, Irate Reader

With sound design / recording by Hearsay award winning producer Brendan Rehill (An Klondike, the Wedding Tree).

Thanks, hope you tune in!

Download: Migrant Fictions (54 Megs)

A new podcast in which two writers attempt to develop a film in real time, with no preparation.

Featuring Gareth Stack & James Van De Waal.

Download: Let’s write a film – Episode 2.

Previous episodes.

A new podcast in which two writers attempt to develop a film in real time, with no preparation.

Featuring Gareth Stack & James Van De Waal.

Download:  Let’s Write A Film.

Download: Getting into the Game Documentary

Broadcasting Bank Holiday Monday 31st October, 11AM on Newstalk.

Getting into the game is a new documentary aimed at kids who play games. Video games. Kids who play videogames and wonder maybe, possibly, perhapsily, if they’d like to make them. Growing up I remember getting those magazines full of strange impenetrable symbols that promised – if you could just type the whole book into your computer, without making any mistakes – you’d get a brand new, completely free game. These days games are everywhere, but they’re so damn fancy they can seem impossible to learn how to make.

This documentary will help open the lid, just a crack, to see what lies inside your favourite games. We’ve brought together people from every corner of the industry – artists, coders, indies, musicians, gamejammers, and developers of every age.

Featuring interviews with..

The programme is divided into five segments, each one looking at a different part of making games.

Learning the Art

We visit cutting edge computing research laboratories at DIT and IT Carlow and tour exciting games development technology.  Lecturers and students explain the skills students should be building outside the classroom if they’d like to study videogames in college. Students tell us about their love of games and how they got into making their own.

Getting Covered in Jam

At DIT a group called ‘Global Gamecraft’ host ‘game jams’, competitions where anyone (over 18) can help make a game in just a few hours. Game Jams are an excellent way to develop the technical, artistic and collaborative skills sought by the games development industry. Jams are a fun and friendly way for young people to get a taste of game development. We speak to competitors and organisers like Vicky Lee, and provide a glimpse of the excitement and accessibility of ‘homebrew’ game development

Creating Havok

Modern videogames simulate exciting and realistic physics. The most impressive game physics ‘middleware’ software in the world comes from an Irish company founded by graduates of Trinity College. Havok are an industry leader employing dozens of artists and programmers. We speak to staff at the company about the day-to-day work of making one of the key technologies underpinning some of the most exciting and popular videogames.

Independent Heroes

The independent game development community is a thriving segment of the industry. We speak with leading Irish indie developer Terry Cavanagh, creator of hit games like ‘Super Hexagon’, about running his own studio. Terry explains how new distribution methods make it easy for anyone to sell their homemade game on the internet. Independent game development is a part of the industry that is particularly important to present to second level students – since it can be used to develop skills, or even start a business while at school.

We try out virtual reality in the company of Bryan Duggan of DIT, exploring DEEP, the anti-anxiety game from Owen Harris. Deep uses unique breathing sensors, soothing music and a beautiful polygon virtual environment to teach deep breathing relaxation techniques.

We hear from David O’Reilly, animator and creator of fictional videogames for use in Hollywood films. David gives us a glimpse into a self-directed career involving art, graphic design, and filmmaking.

Coder Dojo

Coder Dojo is a place for kids to learn how to make games, websites, and even robots. Started in County Cork, the Dojo movement has spread worldwide. Amazingly, Coder Dojo events are completely free! If there isn’t a coder dojo in your area, you can even start your own. We meet some of the kids who are making coder dojo the coolest place on earth.

Getting into the game was produced by Dead Medium Productions. The programme was developed, researched and presented by Gareth Stack and James Van De Waal.

All the music and sound effects used in the programme are listed here. Many of them are available for you to use for free in your projects under a creative commons licence. This documentary is available to download and share for free under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence, it can be played in class or emailed to your students. Use it and share it! Go make some games!

Download: The Wedding Tree
Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

The Wedding Tree is an audacious new radio drama, set in the aftermath of an accident at an Irish nuclear power plant. In the wake of the disaster, fire officer Cian Mitchell is confined to hospital. Tormented by his injuries, Cian finds unlikely comfort in the company of Philips, an elderly English patient. Philips, a retired air force officer, delivers a series of interconnected tales drawing on everything from the golden age of Hollywood to Ireland’s historic mistreatment of women. The play explores mortality, storytelling, and the interconnectedness of all things. This is a tensely paced, meditative piece of radio theatre that plays with the medium, moving from drama to storytelling and back again.

This was my first time working with the incredibly talented, award winning sound designer Brendan Rehill. Brendan’s work captures the power and presence of natural sound to build rich, captivating audio worlds. For this drama he constructed an aural voyage that takes us from the heart of a nuclear reactor to the gizzards of a dying man.

The Wedding Tree was produced by Dead Medium for Newstalk. The programme was written and directed by Gareth Stack, and sound design was by Brendan Rehill.

The cast were: Mitchell – James O’Connor, Philips – William Brady, Surgeon / Mrs Mitchell / Nurse – Aislinn O’Byrne, Rory – Sebastian Connellan.

Theme music and incidental music by Roger Gregg.

‘The Wedding Tree’ was broadcast Saturday 12th August at 8am and 10PM  GMT on Newstalk 106 -108FM.

The programmes was made possible by a grant from the Sound & Vision fund. Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee.

Download: Ideopreneurial Entrephonics.

My latest report for Culture File looks at the recent Ideopreneurial Entrephonics II festival of avant garde music and modular analogue synthesis, held in the mysterious confines of Dublin’s Freemasons Lodge.

Download: The Wall in the Mind – 6 – Die Mauer Im Kopf

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: The Wall in the Mind – 5 – Who is Emil Reichman?

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: The Wall in the Mind – 4 – Secrets and Lies

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: The Wall in the Mind – 3 – No Friends Like Old Friends

Update: Soundcloud is currently broken (I’m substituting local links, apologies if this screws with your podcast feed).

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: The Wall in the Mind – 2 – The People’s Republic of Friedrichshain

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 1 – The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 15 – The Card in the Rubble

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind The Wall – 14 – Mia Gallagher Interview

Mia’s latest novel ‘Beautiful pictures of the lost homeland’ also launches this week. You can order it here. Synopsis below.

Sometime around now a bomb-blast in the London Underground rips through space and time, unearthing four inter-whirling stories from the present and the past. Geo (once Georgie, now Georgia) receives a call offering work and a way to escape her home, her memories and her own inertia – and so begins a road trip spiked with the hidden dangers of her past and present. In the lead up to the Underground explosion, an elderly German woman, Anna Bauer, recounts her own war story to a film crew. In the 1970s, as the Madden family begins to disintegrate, a disruptive stranger arrives who will bind them, if only briefly. And all along, pinballing in a parallel reality, we the ‘visitors’, are guided through an unsettling and volatile tour of the ‘Museum of Curiosities’. In Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland, the past crosses, weaves and whispers by the present; generations are bound together and cleaved apart; and as they unspool, the fragmented lives of four people become a whole, where time is unknowable.

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 13 – James O’Connor Interview

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 10 – Sven Moritz Interview

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 10 – Jasmin Gleeson Interview

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 10 – Janine Dürkop Interview

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 9 – Halfway Point

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 8 – This is Berlin

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 7 – Money Freakout

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 6 – Rehearsals

Behind the Wall

Behind The Wall is a series of special feature podcasts accompanying ‘The Wall in the Mind‘, an ambitious new on-location drama series, coming to Newstalk and podcast starting on Saturday the 16th of April @ 7AM & 10PM. Each episode features an interview or behind the scenes clip. Think of it like the ‘making of’ special features on a DVD or Blu-Ray.

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 5 – Shryan Gosling

In today’s Episode of ‘Behind the Wall’ we return to the audition process. We take a look a the demands recording an ‘off book’ script places on actors. James O’Connor describes the intricate psychological manipulations involved in the casting process.

I’m joined in this episode by actor / director James O’Connor

Behind the Wall

Behind The Wall is a series of special feature podcasts accompanying ‘The Wall in the Mind‘, an ambitious new on-location drama series, coming to Newstalk and podcast starting on Saturday the 16th of April @ 7AM & 10PM. Each episode features an interview or behind the scenes clip. Think of it like the ‘making of’ special features on a DVD or Blu-Ray.

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall – 4 – Location Scouting

In episode 4 of our making-of series ‘Behind the Wall‘, we travel down to Martinstown House in the Curragh of County Kildare, to location scout for the drama series, in the company of Andrew Booth. Why would you record a radio series on location? How do different places sound? How is making drama on the radio like making a feature film? All this and more.

I’m joined in this episode by chef Andrew Booth, who cooks and caters marvellous dinners for guests and visitors to Martinstown.

Behind the Wall

Behind The Wall is a series of special feature podcasts accompanying ‘The Wall in the Mind‘, an ambitious new on-location drama series, coming to Newstalk and podcast starting on Saturday the 16th of April @ 7AM & 10PM. Each episode features an interview or behind the scenes clip. Think of it like the ‘making of’ special features on a DVD or Blu-Ray.

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions.

Download: Behind the Wall 3 – Auditions with James O’Connor

Episode 2 of ‘Behind the Wall’, visits the audition process as myself and Dublin based James O’Connor struggle with the task of finding the perfect cast for ‘The Wall in the Mind’.

Whats This?

Behind The Wall is a series of special feature podcasts accompanying ‘The Wall in the Mind’, an ambitious new on-location drama series, coming to Newstalk and podcast starting on Saturday the 16th of April. Each episode features an interview or behind the scenes clip. Think of it like the ‘making of’ special features on a DVD or Blu-Ray.

The Story

Claire O’Hanlon, a young Irish woman, became caught up in the events sweeping East Berlin, just prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. Arrested at a pro-democracy protest, Claire and her friends were imprisoned by the East German secret police. Twenty-five years later, now a successful academic, Claire returns to Berlin. She attempts to finally heal, and to resolve the mystery of what happened to her first love, Emil, who disappeared in 1989.

The Podcast

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions

Download: Behind the Wall 2 – Ewan Hennelly – Berlin Military Base Story

In episode 2 of ‘Behind the Wall’, I join Ewan Hennelly on the South Downs, to hear about his narrow escape from the forces of law and order exploring Berlin’s mysterious Teufelsberg. Teufelsberg is an abandoned cold war spy facility nested in the hills above the Grunewald forest. This story served as the inspiration behind ‘The Wall in the Mind’.

You can check out Ewan’s new range of toys, mentioned in the podcast at Hollow Planet Designs.

Whats This?

Behind The Wall is a series of special feature podcasts accompanying ‘The Wall in the Mind’, an ambitious new on-location drama series, coming to Newstalk and podcast starting on Saturday the 16th of April. Each episode features an interview or behind the scenes clip. Think of it like the ‘making of’ special features on a DVD or Blu-Ray.

The Story

Claire O’Hanlon, a young Irish woman, became caught up in the events sweeping East Berlin, just prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. Arrested at a pro-democracy protest, Claire and her friends were imprisoned by the East German secret police. Twenty-five years later, now a successful academic, Claire returns to Berlin. She attempts to finally heal, and to resolve the mystery of what happened to her first love, Emil, who disappeared in 1989.

The Podcast

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions

Download: Behind The Wall – Episode 1 – One Good Thing

My next radio drama series hits Newstalk next month starting on Saturday the 16th of April.

“The Wall in the Mind” looks at the impossibility of love and even friendship in a world where someone is always watching – the Stasi surveillance state of East Germany.

Today we we are constantly monitored, our emails read, our tweets collected, our photos analysed our phone calls recored and stored in the vast unaccountable silos of the NSA. But this isn’t the first Orwellian surveillance state. From the end of the Second World War to the late nineteen eighties, East Germans had to suffer their families and neighbours reporting their actions to the paranoid political police of their communist government.

“The Wall in the Mind” follows the experiences of Claire O’Hanlon, an Irish immigrant, who has crossed the Wall to communist East Germany to follow Emil, her young lover, into the punk politics of Berlin in the late eighties.

Recorded on location with a cast of German and Irish actors, the series explores how our sense of self diminishes, under the panopticon of a surveillance culture.

“The Wall in the Mind” will play on Newstalk in Ireland each Saturday on the 16th, 23rd, and 30th of April at 7am, repeating at 10pm each day, with podcasts released the same day.

For the online release, I’ve decided to do something a little different. In the weeks leading up to broadcast, we’ll be posting interviews, audio diaries and clues to the true stories that inspired the mystery.

Then, as the show is being broadcast, we’ll put it out online for podcast and streaming – scene by scene. The idea is to create something of the anticipation of a classic radio serial or Dickensian short story. Each day there’ll be something new to hear, another clue to the mystery at the heart of the story.

You can subscribe to these bonus episodes, and download or stream the podcast of ‘The Wall in the Mind’ at the following places – iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud.

Credits – Images, Cast & Crew, Dead Medium Productions

The Wall in the Mind is an upcoming radio drama series on Newstalk, launching early 2016.

Claire O’Hanlon, a young Irish woman, became caught up in the events sweeping East Berlin just prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. Arrested at a pro-democracy protest, Claire and her friends were imprisoned by the East German secret police. Twenty-five years later, now a successful academic, Claire returns to Berlin. She attempts to finally heal, and to resolve the mystery of what happened to her first love, Emil, who disappeared in 1989.

The Wall in the Mind is an exciting historical drama series, coming to Newstalk in 2016. The series combines a variety of innovative storytelling and sound production techniques to create a thrilling drama linked to real historic events. Listeners travel back and forth in time, as Claire tries to make sense of her experiences as a teenager in communist East Berlin and to solve the mystery of her vanished first love, Emil.

Writer / Director Gareth Stack travelled to Berlin to research the historic locations featured in the series. There he explored the ruins of the paramilitary police barracks, where on 7th and 8th October 1989 hundreds of East German protestors were held in one of the last desperate acts of a tyrannical regime. Thousands marched as the communist government faced revolution on the streets.Those unlucky enough to be arrested were tortured by the notorious ‘Volkspolizei-Bereitschaft’ paramilitary police. These events inspired a story that explores the marks history leaves on the lives of ordinary people.

The drama is brought to life by stunning performances by leads Mia Gallagher as Claire in 2014 and Jasmin Gleeson as Claire in 1989. These roles were developed over weeks of rehearsals with the cast, who all worked ‘off book’ to create a naturalistic compelling drama.

Using extensive foley, on location recording, as well as binaural microphones and cassette recordings, The Wall in the Mind captures the paranoia of one of the darkest moments in the Cold War. The Wall in the Mind is a richly developed story, featuring strong female lead characters, leading to a shocking conclusion. This is a mystery that brings us right into the world of the most surveilled society in history.

Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the television licence fee.

Download: The Wall in the Mind – Trailer

The show will be available on Soundcloud and on Dead Medium [iTunes, RSS], the new podcast featuring the best drama, documentary, comedy and sound art from Dead Medium Productions.

If you’d like more information about this upcoming series or any of our other productions, including the award winning documentary ‘Mad Scientists of Music’, get in touch via mail or on twitter.

A companion to Paraudiolia 1 (a piece composed as part of Bluebottle Collective’s ‘Hibernation Radio’ project), Paraudiolia Part 2 deals with degeneration in a cosmic context – the personal and collective dementia experienced as we flail beyond our capacities. This is a series of works employing musique concrete, anonymised interview and reflexive writing, to reflect on disillusion.

This is an episode of the new Dead Medium new podcast. This will be a best of show, including drama, interviews, sound art, comedy and gonzo ‘journalism’. We’re on itunes now, or you can subscribe to our RSS feed here.

Download: Paraudolia Part 2 [Mechanical Blasphemy]

This piece was made during last years Hearsay Festival, and won a tiny award for best story in the In The Dark audio scavenger hunt! It features Pat Herbert of the Hurdy Gurdy Radio Museum, the sounds of the Hearsay Festival church heater, and György Ligeti’s ‘Requiem’.

Download: Stardust

Where do we turn for love in the modern age? A variety of apps promise instant sex, momentary intimacy, group vouched safety. In this odd little story, one Irish man talks about his disenchantingly modern experience with a creature of myth.

This is the first episode in Dead Medium Productions new podcast. This will be a best of show, including drama, interviews, comedy and gonzo ‘journalism’. We’re on itunes now, or you can subscribe to our RSS feed here.

Download: ‘A Creature of Myth’

Download: ‘The Killer Podcast’

Excited to announce that a piece I created for Blue Bottle Collective’s Hibernation Radio project is being played at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, as part of the ‘More Than One Maker‘ exhibition. Massive congratulations to all the Blue Bottle Collective! You can listen to the piece, which explores Dublin’s rejection of it’s young artists and creative communities, below. The piece is playing on a loop along with a selection of other pieces from ‘Hibernation Radio’, in the main square of IMMA until mid June. Facebook event here.

Download: Paraudiolia 1 [It’s not that way it’s over here]

Download: Robot Jam

I really had no idea what to expect. Where is Kilfinane? Why is it so far away? What has it got to do with radio? The Hearsay Festival turned out to be chock-full of talented folk obsessed with sound in all its forms. Rachel Ni Chuinn’s talk about her intricately wrought documentary ‘The Shape of Sounds To Come‘ was one highlight. Steve Fanagan‘s overview of the sound design of ‘Frank’ was another. I’ve always felt the best cinematic sound design is on a different level of sophistication and subtlety to radio work. Steve’s talk only confirmed my suspicions. There are so many lessons I’ll take from his approach to using sound to build story, take the audience on an emotional journey, and reinforce character and POV.

Storytelling through sound was a facet of all the Hearsay Prize winning pieces. I’ve attended awards shows or contests where the choice of winner is inexplicable or downright outrageous. The opposite was the case here. Every single winning entry had something new to teach.

‘One Time’ is the gorgeously subtle and heartrending account of Julia Barton‘s then infant son’s life threatening illness. The piece wove archival recordings together with Zach’s response to hearing them as a precocious eleven year old. It managed to be personal, fearless and lyrical.

Kaitlin Prest’s (Audiosmut / The Heart) piece ‘A Kiss’, managed a similar feat, recounting the last kiss of lost love. The piece reveals an intimate moment in a manner both simple and surprising.

Karen Robin’s ‘Lasagne Days’ (available at her site) used a memory of childhood meals to explore the story of her broken home. I could listen to this piece all day, utterly poignant and bewitching.

‘All For Nothing’ is a mini documentary by filmmaker and journalist Charlie Lyne, with original music from Anthony Ing. The piece tells the story of the eccentric director Rolfe Kanefsky and his decent into, well if not madness, at least amusingly tragic delusion. The piece was confounding and compelling in the way the best This American Life stories used to be – developing a general point about art and ambition from one unique and memorable story. The accompanying full length album is well worth listening to.

Brendan Rehill’s beautiful soundscape ‘Aran Of The Saints’ cast us under the waves and across the sea on a journey that explored an Aran natives relationship to the perilous waves.

Finally Conor Reynold’s picked up a much deserved prize for his almost wordless drama ‘News Is Proximity’. I won’t spoil the story, but this brilliantly put together audio fiction came along at just the right time. This morning I had the opportunity to facilitate a script doctoring workshop at Colaiste Dhulaigh, and ‘News Is Proximity’ was the first thing I played. The students seemed to really respond to it’s audacious approach to narrative.

I filled dozens of notebook pages with ideas, techniques and inspiring radio pieces to listen to. I met many many amazing people, whose work I look forward to following over the coming years. Huge congratulations to Diarmuid, Mairead, Greg and Mary at Grey Heron Media, who put together a genuinely worthwhile weekend.

The piece at the stop of this post is an outtake from my documentary ‘Mad Scientists of Music‘, which was shortlisted for the Ballyhoura Award at the festival. It features the voices, music and robots of ‘Deathness Injection‘.

The piece below was made during the festival, and won a tiny award for best story in the In The Dark audio scavenger hunt! It features Pat Herbert of the Hurdy Gurdy Radio Museum, the sounds of the Hearsay Festival church heater, and György Ligeti’s ‘Requiem’.

Download: Stardust

Experimental short documentary piece I made a while back. The narration was adapted from an unpublished short story called ‘The Wedding Tree’. The story was later adapted into a radio drama for Newstalk. I talked about the ideas behind this story in an Ignite talk at Mindfields a couple of years back called ‘The Nuts & Bolts Of Making Stuff Up’.

Download: The World You Think You Live In