Characters
The show, which was created by James Douglas was to be called The Riordans after the name of the family, and to feature two middle-aged parents, Tom Riordan and his wife Mary Riordan, with their oldest son, Benjy and other siblings, including brother Michael and sister Jude, all of whom except Benjy had left farming for other careers and had more adverturous personal lives. Other leading characters included the family doctor, his Protestant gentry-born wife, the (radical Vatican II-oriented) Catholic priest, the conservative Church of Ireland rector, the local pub owner, some nomadic Irish Travellers and others.
Part of the success of the series was because many of the leading actors were themselves from the background they represented. John Cowley, who played the patriarch of the family, Tom Riordan was from real farming stock in Ardbraccan in County Meath and many of the issues his character had to deal with reflected his own life experiences in rural Ireland. Actor Tom Hickey, who played Benjy was from County Kildare in the midlands and also had personal experience of life in the part of the country in which the programme was set.
Read more about this topic: The Riordans
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“Of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, we cannot avoid the question whether the characters are not significant of themselves.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that’s basically a conservative view of life.”
—Jane Smiley (b. 1949)