Lively teen drama offers fresh take on Rebellion

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Eipic, an anarchic new comedy drama for teenagers, will be broadcast on TG4 from Thursday February 4.

In a nod to the year that’s in it, the six-part series is about a group of rebels, but these are teenagers of 2016, who are rebelling against boredom and small-town Ireland.

Written by Mike O’Leary, one of the writers on E4’s cult series Misfits, Eipic is a character-based drama about five teenagers. Intent on winning an online music competition, they break into a post office which they use as a rehearsal space.

Clarinbridge man Cian Ó Baoill plays Oisín in Eipic – his character is a supremely confident 17-year-old, who has moved with his parents to the one-horse town of Dobhar and is beyond bored.

Oisín’s fellow band members are Sully, the child of a wayward family who has instigated the musical group; Mona, a shy and multi-talented musician; Bea a pretty and vain singer who is hiding a secret from her friends; and Aodh, who is trying to break away from the confines of his nationalist family, who have a trad-music band.

Eipic is a lively production with lots of humour, strong language and an irreverent approach to Irish ways. Music is intrinsic to the series and tracks such as The Jam’s Town Called Malice, Frankly Mr Shankly by The Smiths and Video Girl by FKA Twigs are given a new Irish-language twist as the characters strive for online fame.

The internet is also central to Eipic’s plot – Sully is encouraged to enter the online music competition by a mysterious man who hosts an internet forum and bears an uncanny resemblance to none the than War of Independence hero Michael Collins.  Undoubtedly Eipic is a modern coming-of-age drama but it’s one that could only have emerged from Ireland.

Since Christmas, Cian and his fellow actors have been criss-crossing the country, giving audiences a sneak preview of the series.

Eipic was screened at NUI Galway last week and has had a couple of screenings in Dublin as well as visiting Cork and Belfast. Screenings have been geared mostly at the target audience of young adults and teens, and Cian is thrilled with the reaction.

“I’ve had people coming up to me afterwards to discuss it and friends, some of whom have no Irish, really like it,” he says.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.