Culture Club: Owen Roe

0:00the last word on today FM delighted to have for the culture club today somebody who has been an actor on our TV screens on stage on radio for decades now at this stage I'm sure you'll know on Owen Rowe thank you so much for being with us here on the last word for the culture club thank you man we've got to be here you've been involved in so many things the latest thing you're involved in is the six-part RT drama which is on every Sunday also in the RT player called the Heart Acres you played Lord George Fitz Herbert so let's just hear you in that role fair enough okay this is our new neighbor Lord George Fitz Herbert this is my wife Mary Lord Fitz Herbert charm Mrs. Hardacre and our youngest hi oh oh gosh what happened to you I'm born this way doesn't hold him back though does the song oh good for you my Mrs. Dryden how loving to see you Lord Fitz Herbert

1:03may we offer you some refreshments well I just say I've timed my visit perfectly for afternoon tea I'm afraid we don't take afternoon tea in this house anymore any gosh all right in that case I'll make do with a tot of Madera please so tell me young man why are you reading of an afternoon and not at school oh well what you're looking for a new school farry well the only place worth a damn in Yorkshire is Barlow's boarding school would portet nomen maim cordon gentibus so again it's the Barlow's motto carry my name to the people but boarding school though didn't you miss your family oh not a job now in fact Barlow's three hours made me the man I am today the rough housing rowing and ruddy good japs so how did you end up in this Yorkshire drama from the late 19th

2:05century oh it's very very polished what was there I'm yeah no I auditioned basically and I got the part and I was delighted and I mean it's a lovely piece of TV I find is it a Downton Abbey type kind of maybe not as plush maybe I don't think of the same budget but not a very minute and but it was no it was it was it's great fun to do and it's a bit of a respite from twenty four century living to watch actually it's a it's a it's a nice bit of escapism and the plots are quite good and the people I'm working with we're like a family I know you hear this and it's made in Ireland it's made in Ireland yeah we've shot it in the Camontilly house periscord house and Marley Park and we have got this kind of fishing village which they have in periscord which is an incredible set credible to work on as well but the whole thing is a joy to do I mean it really is a joy to do and this is we just on our second series now and RT have shown in the fourth series the second one will be out on channel five I think in sometime late spring

3:09early summer are you the type of actor who will turn your hand to everything I'd like to think so I don't call myself an actor come is a performer now that's made sound pretentious but it's not an actor kind of in a way gets limited or pigeonholed and I don't like to do that and I I've managed to escape that for a long time I did stand up I did children's television I wrote for children's television I've done Shakespeare I've done you know some heavy duty stuff as well and so I'd like to think that I can turn my hand to whatever I'm offered and if I you know I don't tell myself I can't do it I like the challenges of it so you were just saying before we started on air that used to be on scraps I heard it that's right yeah and it does the generation who would have no idea of just how important scraps I heard it was in Irish broadcasting around 19 late 1980s early 1990s that's right 80s 90s yeah we just have term of Morgan and Pauline McLean and scripts J.U. Stembridge yeah yeah and it was it was it must listen to every Saturday morning and it

4:10created stars all the people like Charlie Hawley's press secretary PJ Mara who you played I just played Mario and who sounded nothing like the character he was but it worked for us like he was kind of this full character or every man character to his uh Hawley layer you know and he was a drinking buddy a dorm of Morgan so I think wasn't I think they might have been yeah I'm not too sure but I mean he did have a good he had a kind of an insight track on some of the stuff that was happening uh so much so that we were getting phone calls at the office uh um from certain politicians it's given us information that we couldn't use because it went in public domain so you say no we get sued you know anyway there's only one person tried to sue us uh um that was leave that name out there well unless the person is dead well we educated that he wore a wig and that's when he said decide to sue us and so but I think he did wear a wig if I'm thinking to the person and I think he's still alive okay but he wanted a retraction that we gave a retraction where Pauline came on the next week he said um yeah it's his own hair we saw the receipt

5:15so it was no more set up for that no but it was it was great fun to do and it was um it kind of and it was very necessary I think it was a very healthy thing we don't have as much now we have to do certain amount of satire but I think what we did was we got in quickly we did it got made a point and got out again and moved on sometimes I hear some stuff and it goes on and on and on and I get it I get it to stop okay let's go to our culture club choices and we talk more about theater and television and things a little bit later but what about music uh first single we ask everybody yeah and you've given us the single but you really want to hear the B side of it yeah it was um I was seven years old and there was a big fan of the Monkeys on television and I bought daydream believer and I thought yeah it's a nice pop song and I could sing along and you know when you bought when you bought it's a record it was an event it was an amazing thing yeah you brought it home it was a big deal everybody sat around and listened to it nothing like now but it was a it was a great great thing to you know to treat it that way well I thought the by a record was an

6:18event and then when I put on the B side I thought oh no this is very different this is very different this is Mickey doldens doing some sort of frantic song and I found out later and I really got into it but I found out later it was about a song a but a quiz relationship it didn't work out and uh so it's around himself which like every seven-year-old child doesn't really want to hear but I didn't realize at the time I just thought this is an amazing piece of frantic scat jazz rock I didn't know what they had to call it but it was just a grab me and I listened to that more than the B A side but I think it actually was released as an A side one stage in the states made the number number five or something of the charts as going down and I know they used to do it live as well but I thought it was a great track it's here a bit of a fight

7:19I'm going down I'm coming up for every 30 stuff under there like I said I didn't care and I forgot to leave a note and it's a hard to stay afloat I'm soaking wet without a boat and I knew I should have taken off my shoes it's front page news going down going down hip-hop I wish I had another drink I wouldn't be so hard to sing I should have taken time to think besides I got the picture straight you must have had another date I didn't need this extra way to wish that I could see the way it's sharp I don't want no more going down I'm going down I cannot see the level and slip it all the way I made a shuttle under swimming said it naturally got me stuff I can't believe it why I turn my life okay the moon he's going to I've never heard that before I don't ever use that in the TV show

8:25no it wasn't but it was used in the episode of um a break and bad what was it yeah yeah I missed it because I've seen every episode of a break and bad it's not on the score to see and I think where they were making math and but yeah it was actually used I was taking a bike when I saw it and so it's going down that reminded me of it again but I did love I was used to freak out to that I only did it it's a seven there's a massive stereogram which was like a big coffin in the room you know there's a massive thing and that was the that was the my choice at the time great track it is yeah it is okay favorite album what are you going to give us a Latin saying by David Bowie I found this to be a very interesting time my life was 14 and Bowie underscored pretty much all my teens and nearly 20s but when this kind of I had listened to I'd worn out Ziggy Stardust and this white is from Mars it was slightly more familiar with Hockey Dory not as much as Spudges Mars and then a Latin saying came along I was like a door opening on a different world

9:27it was a very dark edgy very sexual album of sorts it was an album I used to turn down if my parents from the house I turned down the volume because they heard some of the lyrics you know there was things like what what was it let's spend the night together he did a version of the stones and there's a song called Time which I don't think ever colored an airplane on any radio station it couldn't someone because the lyrics and then there was a very very sexy track called Lady Grinning Soul which at the age of 14 you thought there's more to come in this life so this album was a very sensual album and it had a mixture of of kind of mainstream pop songs like Pretty A Star with a Mark Bowling playing a great guitar solo on a certain drive in Saturday and these are kind of popular poppy songs but then you had something like I say Lady Grinning Soul or the title track a Latin saying which was it was kind of vintage is very strange reformed jazz

10:28so it's a mixture of different styles on the album but to me at the time it just intrigued me it just used all these ideas and words that I hadn't quite clue what was going on but I knew there was something going on something edgy there okay the title track would be one of my favorite borrower tracks but the one that we have is perhaps the best known from that album the Gene Snow White New York's a go-go and everything tastes like your little greenie

11:28you get back on Gene Gene and lives on his back to Gene Gene and loves Gene's that his out of play laughs his beans and he pours the Gene Gene and let's just all go It sits like a man, but he smiles like a reptile, she loves him, she loves him. Brilliant. The Gene Genie, yep. From Aladdin's saying, but you've also given us Bowie is your favorite artist. That's right. You stuck with him throughout various... I have, yeah, and I find it difficult to listen to the last album because it was so full of his own sort of knowledge that he was dying and it's, you know, it's hard to believe that he's gone. He's 69 when he died, I guess he was around for so long, from my teens, he was present

12:33from the age of 12, I think, 12, 13, and 13 I was actually got a job in a record shop during the summer. So I had access to all albums and hits that were coming in. So I got to get familiar with Sonny, sort of, reading much of a backpack, a backpack catalog in 73, but I was very close to what was going on in the music scene at that time and right through I was working in, I left one out of school, I was working for a period in warehouses, record warehouses, and so I was distributing records as well, well wanting to be an actor. So yeah, he was there, or eight from my teens, one or two albums I wasn't that keen on, I wasn't keen on pin-ups, I wasn't keen on diamond dogs, but after that the rest were, I mean, when the heroes came out, I thought, oh, well, he's done it again, station to station was a great album as well, but he was there, and the great thing was that all my peers agreed on this, that probably was the man. And later on when I got a little older, I guess, and he moved on, did some albums with

13:34his own band, tin machines, stuff like that, I wasn't that keen on it. So and but today I will always listen to him in the car, I'll always go back to Bowie, it's funny as you get older. I do listen to new stuff, but I keep going back to Bowie every time, and you know, he just keeps, the heroes is probably one of my favorite songs, I could listen to that any time, and the album was something else, but his latest, his last two albums, I thought were terrific as well. So the track we have, you haven't mentioned this particular track, but maybe it's this best known. Always audition. All to major songs, seven, six, commencing countdown engines on, two, two check ignition,

14:49and may God's love deal with you. This is ground control to major tone, you've really made the grave, and the papers want to know who's your choice you were. Now it's time to lead the capsule, let me aday. Space honestly. Hey, David Bowie. We still feel the same now. We haven't even got the four people going to the moon. Yeah, it's timely, very timely. Okay, best gig. I mean, not the first person to nominate in Lizzie for the culture club, I tell you. This is it. When the stadium was air version of O2, you know, it was, and that was where the big thing. This is the national stadium. I should say. That's the one, yeah.

15:49So I saw them there, and God knows, 70, six, maybe 77. I think it was around time of jailbreak release, and when that was released, and they were the band at the time, they were, we were so proud of them, actually. And there's a thing where I grew up on Canada Street, not too far from here. And we used to kick football on the street. And there was this man used to come through with a guitar, and he'd put it down, he'd kick ball, it was a little bit, and he's a black man, which was not usual at the time, and it was felint. So I used to play kick football on the street with felint, and me and my mates, we didn't even know it was coming at the time, but then he went on to greater things, of course, and that gig was something else, because we were so proud. This was a band, a Dublin band that just became a hit in America, and all over the world. It was just, we were very happy. Is this not from the national stadium in the late 70s, because there's not any audio from that time? But of course, there is lots of fantastic, lazy lives, such as live and dangerous.

16:50So you mentioned the jailbreak album. This is the title track. I know, looking right to the end, you see it's coming, I think it's fast. A little bit way, do you hear what I say? I'm under my breath. Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak. So we're in the town, tonight there's going to be a jailbreak. Don't you be around.

17:54Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak. Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak. Some women won't survive. She's the boy with me in business. What's lost in her mouth? I know, I'm on my channel, I'll now bring loose an arm and silence with it. Like a game if you lose. Ah, brilliant. Ah, yeah. Jane Drake. It's so evocative of that. That sounds amazing. Please, you're right, Mike. Hey, movies. Favorite movie. Tell us what you selected for us, please. I'm a chord by Frederic Orphalini, which means I remember using the Rhymini dialect, apparently. It's said in Rhymini where he was born. I find it an amazing movie. I watch it so many times. It's like real comfort watch. And it's more like people watching and watching a movie because you get to see how this seaside town of Rhymini operates.

18:56And all the different characters are there. And it's hugely entertaining from start to finish. It was around the time when fascism was starting to take a hold as well. But it doesn't go into a two deeply. It doesn't become very dark in any way. But it shows it up as it really makes it ridiculous rather than dark. But the characters are so many characters. And they're very colorful. And sometimes they're grotesque. But there's no storyline. So other than it's his memories of his childhood growing up. And you see him. It starts off with a fairly fluff or dandelion seed. Coming to this, the hailing, the start of spring. And then the town comes together for the burning of a witch of winter. And all those rituals coming together. And by, again, if you ever sat in an airport or in a city square or somewhere on watch people, it's almost like that. And it's hugely entertaining because of it. There's so many different characters.

19:57But it's, it's, I mean, more big italophiles as well at home. So we've been to Italy a lot. And we find ourselves whistling the soundtrack from the movie as well by Nino Rota, which is, it's, it's just you can't separate the two. It's like jaws and the John Williams piece. Once you hear the music, all these images are coming back to you. But it's a film I keep going back to for numerous reasons. It's hilarious. It's sad. It's very moving at times. But some very funny scenes where his uncle Taylor was up in the, you think he goes up into a tree because he says, I, I, I want a woman. And I'm like, I love sick bull. And anyway, and everybody comes out and tries to coax him down from the tree. And he just throws apples at the man. And then eventually this tiny non arrives and says, get down. And he goes, it's, that's just as a humor. But I mean, I just find those things that it's very quirky. And it's, it's not pretentious. It's anything but, but if you enjoy watching people, I think watch Amacord.

21:01It's, it's wonderful. You've been in many, many plays over the years. But just slightly as your favorite, what is Shakespeare's King Lear? Yeah. If you've ever questioned whether Lear was timely or not, I mean, just look at King Lear. It's about this egomaniac ruler who needs to be flattered a lot and needs to be told how wonderful he is. Although otherwise, everything around him will collapse and fall apart. Is that ringing any bells? Yeah. Yeah, there you go. So I mean, but it's not just that. Are you seeing the Shakespeare suffered from Trump to range and syndrome? I think for as long as people lived, there's always been some Trump somewhere. But yeah, I think so. It's a, yeah, Trump to range when he plays Shakespeare. But no, and I was lucky to play it in the Abbey. And about 10 years ago now, all the time. Anyway, but it was wonderful to experience that because it's a play that has so many things going on in.

22:02The character is an old man who should know better. You should have wisdom. And it doesn't. You see him going through this and when he comes to the other end, he's got remorse of what he's done where he's he's rebanished his daughter Cordelia. And what she calls his sometime daughter. And you know, it's a very cruel wicked thing to do and you see the pain of it. And then how he turns on his two daughters, expecting them to hell some with a hundred nights each. And they said, no, not me. Go to my sister. No, forget it. Staying around whatever. And so he has this breakdown. And so many times you see the madness scene. Now I had to, I actually, but at the time when I was rehearsing my mother died. But she had dementia. And so I actually, I was kind of a tribute to her. I took those moments and made a part of Lear's madness. And it made more sense. It wasn't just him going a bit loony. There was a logic to it. Yeah. There was an internal logic to it. And it was a very, for me, a very satisfying piece to do.

23:05And it also helped at the time because it took my mind off the fact that my mother died. And it made me focus and it was kind of great for it in a way. So yeah, it's just a very powerful piece of theatre. And it's a, you know, anyone who's, it's a domestic drama. I don't focus on, I didn't want to get too heavy into the politics of it. Because I don't think he audiences nowadays will be that interested. They want to see how the father interacts with his daughters. How they refer to him. How family works. Oh, that's part of it. It's a big domestic drama. And it's okay. That's a great choice. Television. When you weren't playing football with Phil Liner, what television were you watching as a child? Well, we were watching the Twilight song, which still is a big favourite in my own every episode now on DVD. The Avengers with Patrick McNeigh and Diana Rigg and then later Linda Thorson, very fancied by Matt. And then... What about John Lomley then for the new Avengers? Yeah. That's the same for you. No, I didn't have the 60s vibe.

24:06You know, I needed that. I mean, I was ridiculous. I had a briefcase. No, that was the man from Uncle, sorry. We had gone inside. I used to walk around this sort of six-year-old walking room with a briefcase with a gun inside. Anyway, I had the cane. Patrick McNeigh had the cane with a sword. Yeah. And I got that from a number of half a crown for this cane in a walk around the store on the street. And this again, walking around the street with a cane with a sword inside it. And Hitchcock's playhouse was a great favourite of myself. My mother used to watch. And we always... She was always get frustrated with the endings because they always had what she called a Hitchcock ending, which was like slightly ambiguous as to what actually happened. And it used to frustrate her, but we'd have a laugh. We'd watch it at the same time. But those were the three of my three main ones. And then you've already mentioned Breaking Bad. But from that era, the sopranos is one of your favourites. Oh, yeah. Watch every episode of that. That's amazing. That's everything from Shakespeare to Greek tragedy right there.

25:07And my son, my wife, used to sit down and watch. And we started out. We had to put the subtitles on because I hadn't actually what they were talking about. They were on a slang going on. But then when we got into it, we would sometimes watch three or four episodes in an evening, which would not like us. We just couldn't wait to see the next one. But I mean, we made our way through the whole series. And another one is of course, Veet. I think it's a brilliant piece of... But Veet is almost becoming like real, given what's going on in the present. We have a clip involving Julia Louis-Dryfus, also Anna Klomsky, and Timothy Simons in a scene from Veet. Anna, happy note. We reassigned the Smiling Secret Service guy. It's one less grinning idiot with a gun you have to worry about. Oh, God. What? Sorry to disturb you, ma'am. And yet you are disturbing me. Portis is anxious after recent events that you don't feel he's trying to nudge you out of the process of government. Oh, Matt thoughtful, Amy. So he would like you to head up a program that is very important and very dear to his heart.

26:09No, no, no, no, no. You do not do this to me. Do not say that it is obesity. Do not say that to me. It's obesity. No. I'm sorry, ma'am, but you have drawn the fat straw. I will have all the relevant documents forwarded on your team. It's your bedtime. Get out of my office. Good night. It's worth repeating watching. It is absolutely brilliant. Fantastic. I mean, it's like we'll be on the scrap side. It sometimes was hard to make it funny. Because it was funny already before we even, you know, the stories. Yeah. And you find that it's a great piece of writing and it's a great piece of acting as well. And I adore it. It's wonderful. Like I'm watching it again. Yeah. We've had the creator, Amanda, your new Chiana, a couple of times on the program. He's done some great work. Wait a minute. Favorite book? You've gone for a Dickens book. You've two books. But first, just tell me a little bit why you've picked Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. And I was, again, going back as a kid. I saw it. It came from only with Dickens through television and, you know, cinema.

27:09My mother used to take me to the movies every day. She'd get out from the age of about six. She'd pick me up from school and we go straight where I lived. There was the Deluxe, the Grafton and the Green. And they changed the bill every Thursday. So, Monday, you go to the Deluxe Tuesday, you go to the Green Wednesday, the Grafton. Then Thursday, it's new. Finish your mother, I just spoiled. She did. I mean, this is it. I mean, I was not only child as well. And so was David Copperfield. So I saw that. And I thought that was a great story. And I really got emotionally involved. And then later on, I was going out to libraries and I would pick up Dickens. And I would never clue what was going on because I was so very boast. But at the same time, I was still intrigued. I kept trying and trying and trying. And then I actually read David Copperfield. And I thought, no, this is a terrific story. And I adored it. And this day, I'm a big Dickens fan. And I always make time for them, you know. There's another book, though I want to play a little bit from the audio book, of Edith and Oliver by Michelle Forbes, read by yourself. So let's hear a bit of this.

28:09In the left hand, she holds a soft leather bag and knows her hat. In her right, a suitcase, one of its clasps secured with string. Slung over her shoulder by a loop of rope is a small wooden box, her daughter's portable garden. Alpines, nubbles of limestone, miniature ferns, tiny Narcissi, as light as a bag of apples. She leans into the wind as razor builds strain to hover overhead. Her eyes following the contours of a landscape she will never see again. In the distance, the elegant purple hills below them, the Esplanade, closer still, the black trees. She can hear the sound of the church bell rising from the town, then the calls from the porters. The mail boat is to depart for Hollywood. Its fondles already spewing rills of black smoke into the early morning sky. Let's go, or daughter says to her. She does not move.

29:11She cannot bear to leave him. Let's go, or daughter says again. Setting down her luggage for a moment, she gathers her hair. She puts on her hat, tugs the room the down to shade her eyes. Before she boards the boat, she wipes away the tears that are now running down her face and tells her daughter they are only caused by the wind. You were under pressure to get the delivery right, aren't you? Oh, absolutely. I have to come clean and say, that novel was written by my wife Michelle Forbes. But I still find it an amazing book. I read it. I went over to London to record it. It was just a lovely labour of love, sorry, labour of love. It's weird when you read a book written by your spouse, you go, right, do they really think like that? My god, I wasn't aware of that. There are sides of your spouse that you don't see necessarily. Day to day, but these are private thoughts that can be on public. But it's an amazing book and the detail.

30:13It's about a family set against the background of musical in these islands. And it's a very tragic story, but it's the detail and it's so evocative of that period. And I've seen Michelle work so hard on this. And there's only when you see someone like just lock themselves away for three years, literally. Every day and just graft away and graft, I could never do it. I mean, I just could not do it. And I just, I mean, no, I admire so much we're doing it. But I think it's a wonderful book. It's a terrific book. And if you have any interest in that period of the 1800s or musical or anything, a late, you know, so musical, it's definitely worth reading. Eat it and all of her by Michelle Forbes. We have run out of time. So I'm not going to get to play out very treasure that you have. You had mentioned a neomoflarity novel, Mr. Gilhooly that you wanted to. But I'm delighted to see when you love the music that you've gone from micro-disney to town to town.

31:13Yes, that was something that I just track. I've often mentioned to younger generations and even people from Cork, they'd never heard of them. Unless you have to hear this and then you play it to them and they go, that's amazing. I said, yeah, and it is an amazing track that I sometimes feel like it gets forgotten, hasn't played enough. We actually played it recently here on the last word because be big micro-disney fans. Yeah, anyway, excellent. We've got to leave it there. Oh, and it has been terrific having you for the Culture Club. The last word. On Today FM.