This 45-minute behind-the-scenes dvd features brief anecdotes from Kieran Prendiville, the creator and main writer of Ballykissangel, and from the actors who portrayed Niamh, Siobhan, Kathleen, Liam, Donal, Father MacAnally, and Oonagh and Paul Dooley. The actors talk briefly about what it was like doing the series, its success, why they thought it was cancelled, and so on.
The focus, however, is very much on the impact the series has had on Avoca (ie. Ballykissangel), what with busloads of tourists and bumper-to-bumper traffic flowing through the town on a daily basis. There is the odd brief comment by a few of the local residents--like the local priest, for example--about the filming of the series and its impact. Equally, the dvd focuses to a large extent on the success of the series internationally, with the actors expressing both pleasure and amazement, as well as the odd attempt to reason why. Interspersed were a good many brief responses from visitors in the streets (mostly foreigners) expressing their love for the show.
Usually in a programme such as this, 45 minutes would fly by. I did not find that to be the case here. Unfortunately, there was substantively actually very little. Oh, there were a few interesting anecdotes--like the real Hendley's store carrying on business even while filming was going on (the real customers just used a back entrance), or Dierdre Donnelly (Siobhan) jabbing herself with a needle whilst learning how to handle the animals. There was also a very brief tribute to the late Tony Doyle (Brian Quigley), who died of a heart attack. However, with the actors each expressing similar views regarding the success of the series or its impact on Avoca, and with the many interspersions of visitors praising the series, there was quite a bit of repetition content-wise.
Most disappointing of all, however, was the "tour" (if one can call it that) Joe Savino (Liam) takes us on of Avoca. This had the potential to be quite interesting, but it was extremely poorly filmed. As Savino walked through the town and told us what was what, the camera was focused almost entirely on his face, with the occasional arm thrown in as he pointed out a particular landmark. If lucky, the viewer would get a brief glimpse at the landmark to which he pointed, but it was usually filmed too closely to get any real sense of the object's perspective with respect to its location within the town.
The final thing worth mentioning are the "15 minutes of bonus interviews" touted on the back cover. With five minutes per actor (and that includes a brief opening and closing segment for each), what one actually gets is a repetition of all the little anecdotes that were interspersed throughout the 45-minute programme by Aine Ni Mhuiri (Kathleen), Deirdre Donnelly (Siobhan), and Joe Savino (Liam). Unbelievably, Savino's segment included that same painful "tour" of Avoca!
Though I started off rather enjoying this little dvd, my level of enjoyment tapered off quite rapidly for the reasons mentioned. While it was nice to see a few of the actors chatting about the show, the dvd itself was not well produced and quite amateurishly filmed. The really disappointing thing is that it didn't have to be like this. Ballykissangel was such a sweet series, and with all the participation from Prendiville and so many of the actors, this dvd had the potential to be really good.
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International Available
"On The Ballykissangel Trail"
"45 Minutes of Disappointinly Little Substance"
""Inside Look""