THE COMMISSION
Jane Gogan, Head of Television Drama, RTÉ
INTRODUCTION
There are points in the history of all nations when people have their lives torn apart by tumultuous political events. Points when people have been forced to take sides. Rebellion is a drama that illustrates what it is to be caught up in such events.
Rebellion is written and created by Colin Teevan, directed by Finnish director Aku Louhimies and produced by Catherine Magee for Zodiak Media Ireland Ltd.
The drama begins with the outbreak of World War I, as expectations of a short and glorious campaign are dashed, social stability is eroded and Irish nationalism comes to the fore. The tumultuous events that follow are seen through the eyes of young women and men and their families, lovers and friends from Dublin, Belfast, and London as they play vital and conflicting roles in the narrative of the pursuit of independence. Some prioritise family loyalties; some are motivated by the noblest of ideals and some by opportunism; while others take up arms, prepared to sacrifice everything for the dream of a better society.
The 1916 Rebellion was one of those dreadful, exciting, terrifying periods of history when the fabric of life is ripped apart; a time when political consensus and social stability are destroyed. So, what would it be like to live through that, and to take part in it?
The series explores not only the polarisation and radicalisation of our characters but also the lives and worlds often ignored by the main narratives of political history and documentary; the lives and contribution of women, labour relations, the Church and the poor.
The canvas while epic in scope, is focused on the everyday realities of life in Ireland at the time, and the struggles of our characters to make their way in the world and realise their ambitions.
Our characters find themselves involved in various occupations, which are deeply affected by these historical changes. One works for the British Civil Service, one goes to fight for the British Army, another is a printer. One is radicalised as a school teacher, one is training to be a doctor, another a lawyer, and one is a Redmonite politician. We see the events of 1916 reflected through these worlds and the families and servants of our protagonists and the impact they had on them. They are men and women in their twenties and thirties. They are filled with idealism and determination, and are therefore destined to come into conflict with each other.
Our 5-part serial covers the events of 1916, beginning with the Easter Rising in Dublin. Our fictional characters cross paths with well-known figures from history. Real-life characters from the time, such as Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Eamon deValera, Countess Constance Markievicz, Dr. Kathleen Lynn, are present in the drama and the context of the storytelling accurately reflects the social, cultural and political events of the time.
Our characters are inspired by research, revealed in part by the 1700 testimonies of the period, which run to 40,000 pages in the Bureau of Military History in Ireland, which were recorded in the 1940s, but only made public in 2003.
We meet ELIZABETH, a young middle-class Irish woman, a student doctor. Idealistic and a campaigner for women’s rights, she abandons her life of privilege, not least her imminent wedding, to devote herself to the revolutionary cause.
Her dissolute brother, HARRY, watches from the side, enthralled by the action but interested only in spending his time more usefully pursuing life’s pleasures.
We meet ARTHUR, an Irishman who enlisted as a soldier in the British Army to fight the Germans in order to support his family, but who finds himself fighting his own brother (JIMMY, a socialist revolutionary) on the streets of Dublin.
We meet CHARLES, a British colonial administrator, who finds he has more sympathy with his adopted nation than the empire that employs him.
MAY, is a civil servant working in Dublin Castle. Her romantic entanglement with Charles looks like betrayal to her Irish peers. She finds no comfort from the chaos.
We meet Galway-born FRANCES, a teacher at St Enda’s and a passionate follower of Patrick Pearse. A fresh-faced ‘west-of-Ireland’ beauty, while quiet, she burns with an inner light and zeal for the cause.
GEORGE, Belfast-born, Protestant, he is a barrister and a Liberal Unionist.
These are just a few of the complex, diverse characters that feature in our multi-stranded drama.
Jane Goagn on Rebellion
We wanted to tell a story about the Easter Rising that would play in 2016. It was important that it wasn’t just a retelling of recorded events but a drama that we could relate to and relate to on today’s terms. When we consider Ireland and the world today looking to the past is essential to understand this moment we are in now and the events of 1916 were seminal to what Ireland was to become as an independent state – we wanted the drama to contribute to not just telling the story of then, but also telling the story of now.
When we look at events that are happening in the world of today –- and how our lives are influenced by global political events; events that are suggesting the possibility of profound world change, how does each of us relate to that? I think that moment in 1916 suggested something similar – either with the contempt or celebration of people who were there.
Each of the characters in Rebellion arrives in the moment either by design or by accident, with fear, hope or expectation, and has to deal with whatever unfolds before them. In this way, a drama can present aspects of storytelling that documentary can’t penetrate.
In Rebellion our characters aren’t making history. They’re in a tautly framed drama that is informed by the rigorous historical research.
I think that fiction gives you a lot more freedom to observe. Of course none of our characters can advance or change the course of history: they are observers of history.
Jane on the Script
The script is the architecture of the series. In the main the drama we commission in RTÉ comes from an authored position. Colin’s a great storyteller with a curious mind and research skills to match. His pursuit of the truth has the rigour of a good journalist or historian. Then he creates his fictional characters who occupy the world that he creates which perhaps we know through history and documentary but if we don’t that shouldn’t matter when we watch the drama.
Jane on the Cast
Rebellion presents an ensemble cast with lots of surprises; people who we’ve never seen working together. Some are familiar from other dramas, some we’ve never seen in an RTÉ drama, some are unseen on screen. There’s a fantastic quartet up front with Charlie Murphy, Ruth Bradley, Sarah Greene and Brian Gleeson. Then Barry Ward steps in, Michelle Fairley, Ian McElhinney, newcomers Sophie Robinson and Michael Ford-Fitzgerald and many more. There is a fantastic separation between the characters: as actors they bring great variety; as characters, they all bring a very different experience in the world of that time, creating a sense of complexity in a cosmopolitan society.
Jane on the role of women
Well we didn’t want to exercise the bias that required leaving many of the women who were active at the time out of history in the first place. It’s not a drama about women but about an ensemble of characters. We never discussed gender balance. It was an intrinsic part of Colin’s vision for the drama to tell a story with many perspectives on the events we may or may not know about. All the characters approach the story informed by their own circumstances in the moment and that’s going to be different for a woman or a man, for a character who’s rich or poor or politicised or not.
Jane on the ambition and the legacy
We set out to commission a drama that can be as good as possible. You want it to be smart in what it has to say, tell us something that we haven’t heard before, be good storytelling and be ambitious. After that the audience will decide what the legacy of the series will be.
Jane on International Standards
We always want to create drama to a standard that sits easily with the best international drama. As a public service broadcaster our first responsibility is to an Irish audience and then we want our shows to travel confidently.