Author: livvyy

Rising Heat Part 2 ‘Rivers in the Sky’

livvyy

Part 2 of the Rising Heat Trilogy is now available online. Quite a bit of work had to go into the sound effects for this one.

The second play highlights for Dubliners how we may fare with a changing climate and increased severe flooding, as some may think it will all happen somewhere else.

Susan was Adrianne Murphy
Burt was Gareth Stack
Ned was Joe Murphy
Mrs Ford was Carol Dempsey
Danny was Frank O’Connor
Dr Hartley was John O’Connor
Detective Flannery Peter Prior
Jacinta was Deborah Gafney

Script by Jack Byrne
Directed by Declan Cahill
Production assistant was Deborah Gaffney
Music by Ken Tuohy

Arcade and Retro podcast a finalist for a Web Award

livvyy

The podcast I produce about arcade and retro video games is finalist in the Irish Web Awards

And as it’s International Podcast Day I’ve just uploaded a brand new podcast about growing up gaming in Ireland in the 80s and 90s.

You can listen to it here:

The radio station I’m involved with, Near FM, is currently celebrating 20 years of broadcasting and I put together a little post over there highlighting some of the content that is available on it’s podcast page. I introduced podcasting to the radio station back in 2005 so it was the first radio station in Ireland to have a podcast section.
Amusingly I was one of the first voices on Near FM back in 1995 where I presented a computer show called ‘The Binary Zone’. Odd that here I am 20 years later still talking about the same old games that were brand new back then.

New Podcast: The ‘Mother’ Series

livvyy

A new Arcade and Retro podast went up last week.

In this one myself, Sera and Stephen discuss the Mother series of games, known as Earthbound outside of Japan.

We also talk about Satoru Iwata, who died tragically recently, and how instrumental he was in the development of Mother 2 and the important roll he played in Nintendo and gaming in general.

New Radio Dramas – Want to get involved?

livvyy

I have two new radio drama projects which will be going into production this year. One is a 3 part drama about climate change called ‘Rising Heat’ and the other is something very special that will be broadcast as part of the 1916 centenary next year.

We rely heavily on local amateur drama groups to help out in the production of these radio dramas and we’re always looking for new people and new voices for our plays. So if you think you’d be interested in trying out acting in a radio drama then please get in contact with me at gavin@near.ie 

We’ll be having a preliminary read through of the plays on Thursday the 2nd July 2015 in the Northside Civic Centre in Coolock.

A Woman, A Dog & A Walnut Tree wins Craol Achievement Award

livvyy

The Craol Achievement Awards 2015 were presented, Friday 5th June, at the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire. The live radio drama “A Woman, A Dog and a Walnut Tree” that I produced last October won an award in the Special Programming (non-commissioned) category.

“A Woman, A Dog and a Walnut Tree” deals with the topic of domestic abuse and was presented along with a panel discussion about the realities of domestic abuse.

You can hear the entire play and panel discussion online here:

Rivitin’ History – New Series Promo

livvyy

I just cut together the promo for the new series of ‘Rivitin’ History’ by Pat Meehan. Starting Friday 15th May at 18.00 we’ll be playing the original 2 episodes over the next two Fridays followed by 2 new episodes on the subsequent Fridays.

In Rivitin’ History you’ll meet ‘Marrion Monroe’ and ‘Duck the Bullets’ as they are taken in by Professor Henri DuFornicate’s ability to travel back through time to ancient Ireland.

This series is made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound and Vision scheme.

Let’s Play of Treasure Island Dizzy (NES)

livvyy

I recently got things set up at home so that I can capture footage off some of my older consoles like the Famicom here. So I did a little ‘Let’s Play’ video of Treasure Island Dizzy, a game I mostly remember from playing on the C64 and the Amiga as a kid. The NES version seems a lot closer to the Amiga version. Both being considerably easier than the C64 version.

Recording all done on Rivitin’ History

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Last Sunday we booked a big block of studio time and I recorded the latest Near Drama Company production ‘Rivitin’ History’

Now I’ve got to start on post production and get all the sound effects added in. We should be ready for broadcast in March.

This is a follow up to two previous episodes that were produced about 2 years ago.

It’s a Irish time travel comedy written by Pat Meehan who was one of the writers behind The Shamrogues series of childrens books back in the 80s.

Escape from Bug Island ‘Let’s Play’

livvyy

I had a few friends over for a retro video game party last weekend and we decided to livestream some games.

Unfortunately we’re still working out a way to stream older systems, but fortunately the Wii U is backwards compatible and has a HDMI video output which is easy for us to stream. We played a game called ‘Escape From Bug Island’ from 2006 which we had a lot of fun with. There’s some amazing dialogue in this game.