Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Drama on 1 is offered as a podcast at rte.ie forward slash drama on 1 and of course here on RTE Radio 1 on Sunday nights. Tonight on Drama on 1, Nothing Ever Happens Around Here, written by Robert Barrett.
Chapter 2: What themes are explored in 'Nothing Ever Happens Around Here'?
Reflecting on village life, mortality, poverty, opportunity, futility and ultimately hope, this comedy for radio focuses on a day in the life of Cortland Alexander, a third-generation craft butcher in a small rural town in Ireland. Discombobulated by thoughts of growing older and the death of a school friend, he suffers an existential crisis.
The play took first place in the PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Awards 2020. This is Nothing Ever Happens Around Here by Robert Barrett.
MUSIC
The little turquoise alarm clock goes off, as it does every morning of his get-out-of-bed, good, better, best, never-let-it-rest life. A large, liver-spotted hand swats the alarm clock to the floor. He groans, moans, grummox his legs out from beneath the covers and plants his feet on the floor.
Chapter 3: How does Cortland Alexander's morning routine reflect his character?
His torso follows, sometime after. He yawns. A jaw-breaking, acrobatic yawn in three parts. The first part, the opening. The second part, the quivering. The third... He draws his hand through what remains of his hair. A few gingery grey tufts, each side of a smooth, eggish head. His wife lies in the bed they have shared for 37 journeys around the sun. Her family reared, her nest empty.
This morning, she curls beneath the sheets with the iPad, pretending to sleep. Cortland stands up and takes a few stiff, barefoot steps towards the en suite. He has the look of a man walking on hot coals. Once inside, he relieves himself of his burdens. A spluttery, ineffectual affair, some of which even makes it into the toilet. He flushes, washes his hands.
Cortland regards himself in the mirror, feeling that somewhere between the previous night and this morning, and with no input from himself, he has become possessed of a malaise. It feels like a day when he could have one of his turns and the thought concerns him. It appears he has aged overnight. His eyes, roomy. His crow's feet like the top of a well-opened bag of sweets. His neck, jowly.
He narrows in on his eyebrows. Long, spiky hair grows from every direction, as if trying to escape. It's always the eyebrows he thinks. He decides there and then to cut them. And his thick fingers fumble in the toothbrush cup for the little nail scissors he hides in there. Courtland! His wife, Phyllis, speaks. What? He snaps. Ah, forget it. It's nothing.
Chapter 4: What existential crisis does Cortland face throughout the episode?
The morning has begun in anger. Outside, a dog is barking.
I'm trying to get that stupid Mickey Mouse scissors out of the bottom of the toothbrush cup. That stray dog is barking again. I know the bloody dog is barking.
No, I can't do this. It's not fair.
Courtland, that stray dog is barking again.
Yes, my love. No, too much.
Courtland? Yeah? That Kelly woman is dead. You know, the one with the lazy eye. From out the road? Yeah, she's married to that English fella that came into the shop looking for Wagyu beef. What did she die of?
According to this, she died of a Tuesday. Phyllis laughs. This is her favourite joke. Cortland rolls his eyes in the mirror. He gives up on the cutting of the eyebrow hair and switches to the easier job of shaving himself with his electric razor. Ah, Cortland, Cortland, you'll never guess who's dead.
Who? Guess. You won't believe it. How would I know who's dead?
Guess. Courtland. Padmackie. No. The Brennan one below. No. You're holding a guess who's dead. It's an impossible question. I could be guessing for a month. Is it your man with the angina? Fonzie? Fonzie, what do you call him? No. I give up.
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Chapter 5: How do the characters react to the news of death in the community?
Suddenly at home.
Suddenly?
That's what it says here. But sure, I suppose it's sudden enough for everyone in the end.
Johnny Kenny was in my class in school. I used to sit beside him every day. I feel a pencil story coming on. One day, I stuck a pencil in his eye. By mistake, of course. And the teacher said it was only an accident and accidents happen. But his mother, the old battle axe, beat me up and down the street with an extendable ruler. She only hit him once. She skint me. I never forgot it.
Toilet roll, Courtland! What?
Bring home toilet roll.
A sixteen pack.
Not too soft and not too rough. And in between one.
God in heaven, dog. Give me a break.
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Chapter 6: What humorous interactions occur between Cortland and his wife Phyllis?
Take it easy. I'll take it any way I can get it.
Approaching on the footpath, two abreast, the sisters McGinnity, retired, pink-cheeked and weight-losing with fast walking, arm-pumping and high-visibility vests. Morning, Cortland.
Morning, Cortland.
they say together. Good morning, ladies. They whiz past, no time to talk. Swip-swiping in their windbreakers, they set off on their first loop of the universe of the day, leaving only in their cool afterdraft a hint of rosewater. Cortland picks it up, and it brings to his mind suddenly, sharply, in those final few steps to the shop, his mother.
And through his mother, Lord rest her soul, his father, very much alive. Cortland Alexander II, who at that very moment, and not ten miles away, is being fed a warmish, palish mix of porridge made on milk, the runny residue of which is being scraped from the runnels of his chin by Jorg, a Brazilian nurse of infinite, selfless, beatific patience.
I've had enough of this.
No to worry, Mr. Alexander. Nearly finished now.
Yes. wallpaper paste.
But it's good for you.
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Chapter 7: How does the village life influence Cortland's perspective on mortality?
the customers kept coming. Mrs. Hendy of Drum Snee, a pointy-faced, mouse-eyed, spiky little woman with a love of lamb's liver and black pudding and anything with a bit of... How's Abraham's hip, Mrs. Hendy?
He has to get the other one done, though. Oh, sorry to hear that. Poor Abraham.
Poor Abraham, indeed. BELL RINGS Next in the door, Sergeant Dan Kerrigan, retired, of the Garda Síochána Traffic Corps. An angular, irascible, brutish character who did not suffer fools gladly, although he was a fool himself. A pound of minced beef there, Corkin, please.
Certainly, Sergeant.
Once a Sergeant.
Some mess outside the crossbar this morning, Sergeant. Glasses left everywhere.
Here we go. In my day, we had a solution for that, Cortland. Now and I don't have to tell you what that was.
In your day, they wouldn't do that, Sergeant. They would not. They would not. They would not.
They did. Struggling, battling, nappy-changing, young Nancy Smullen, having given most of her money to her father's legs at the Crossbar Inn, leaves two children outside talking to a three-legged dog, pushes two more in a pram, and carries one snot-smeared, wide-eyed, half-laughing, half-crying cherub of a squish-faced angel in her arms. Pound of sausages, Mr. Alexander, please.
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Chapter 8: What does the encounter with the three-legged dog symbolize?
Good morning, Dappy.
Now, what do I need? She casts a careless hand in the direction of the meat counter, throwing airs of pheasant shoots, racing golden retrievers, hip flasks and crackling turf fires. I need a round roost for part of eight.
Your finest, Mr Alexander, please.
Certainly. And how's Mr Bellingham these days?
He's really great. Thanks for asking. She lies.
That piece OK for you, madam?
That looks fabulous. We're having some friends over, you see. At home, hiding, and not invited to any dinner parties, Mr Bellingham of the big house whimpers.
Depressed, Crestfallen at the loss of his imaginary controlling interest in the East India Company, he lies in the foetal position in an oak-panelled library made entirely out of unpaid invoices and builders' estimates for gargantuan, never-before-seen roofing expenses.
Here he nightmares on everything must go signs and auctioneers hammers and the dirty Wellington booted footmarks of the nosy, stinky, silage soaked farmers who will stomp across the Persian carpets of that same auction. His long-forgotten ancestors sneer and snoop downwards from dusty antiquarian portraits. They hiss with disapproval at his low, desperate... That's wonderful, Cortland.
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