Revealed: Room To Improve, Conversations With Friends and more on RTÉ's autumn schedule
Dermot Bannon is back with Room To Improve
RTÉ has unveiled its offerings for television and radio this autumn, and returning figures include Dermot Bannon, Baz Ashmawy, and Ryan Tubridy while some of Ireland's rising and established stars join forces in its new drama and entertainment offerings.
and will bring makeover magic to our screens later this year while contestants’ skills will be under scrutiny in quiz show with Nicky Byrne and his pop superstar panellists Nadine Coyle, Joey Fatone and Samantha Mumba.
sees Maura Higgins challenge Ireland’s best amateur make-up artists to compete against each other, while sees 18 of Ireland’s fittest from the world of sport and entertainment take on a gruelling physical and mental challenge which has a 90% failure rate.
Chat shows will keep the nation talking as Angela Scanlon takes on hosting duties on , which she says will delve into “a slightly different side of people” and a new season of returns with a Christmas special.
Ryan Tubridy is back in the hot seat as the returns ahead of its 60th anniversary in 2022. “We were very much broadcasting in the shadows, in a manner of speaking, but the fog is dissipating and the world is on the mend and we're going to reflect that on the show,” Tubridy says.
New drama offerings include , an eight-part crime drama filmed in Dublin that follows a crime family who have picked a fight with an international cartel. It stars Charlie Cox, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Aidan Gillen.
Six-part drama is set in two contrasting parts of the world: a small town in Co Clare and the world’s diamond capital, Antwerp. It follows a Belgian Chief Inspector and a CAB detective’s heart-pounding race to prevent a terror attack in Belgium.
Other new programmes include , starring Jane Seymour and Amy Huberman, comedy-drama series , and based on the book by Sally Rooney and starring Cork actress Alison Oliver.
The drama continues on this autumn. Vinny digs her claws into the recently returned Zak Dillon who unwittingly gets dragged into her world of drug dealing, lies and deceit, while Will Casey continues to be a desperate case struggling to get his head above water when it comes to loan shark Ger Lynch.
During the season’s launch, director general Dee Forbes paid tribute to RTÉ’s staff and contributors for their work throughout the pandemic.
“The media, the production and the broadcast industries have battled through the pandemic, and I want to pay tribute to the teams both inside RTÉ and across the independent sector who have worked so hard to ensure that the show would go on. To the crews, the presenters the actors, the journalists and the production teams, thank you for ensuring that we could continue to provide great programming content to the Irish people at such a critical time.”
She added the broadcaster’s autumn schedule includes over 40 hours of new local Irish drama and highlighted the need for RTÉ’s programming alongside global streaming giants.
“Audiences in Ireland should be able to see themselves on screen, hear themselves on air, and read about their experiences online,” she said.
“That is at the heart of RTÉ’s mandate. It is what makes RTÉ distinctive from Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Spotify and Apple. It's why the future of public service media is so important to Ireland.”
