Let them have Fair City, says Montrose

Just days after it emerged that the arts discussion programme, Later With John Kelly, was E's axe, being axed by RTE, the TV station's only other decent arts programme, Cursai Ealaine, is facing the same news. The arts magazine programme in Irish has been running successfully for five years; this year its TAM rating has gone down, but, as its presenter Sarah Ryder contends, it has kept its rating better than most of RTE's home-produced programmes - much better than Fair City, for instance.

First the team was told the programme was being axed, and now the story is that it is "under review". "But if we're under review, why aren't they talking to us?" asks Ryder. "Why aren't we involved in the review of our own programme?"

These to-ings and fro-ings seem far from dignified and far from fair to those involved. But they beg a bigger question: in a country coming down with arts activity, why does RTE show such a lack of nerve when it comes to arts programming?

From Saturday until December 5th you can go on an art crawl through Cork, as the fourth Cork Art Trail lights up around the city. Eleven venues are involved this year, including the Backwater Artists' Group, Cork Printmakers, the Lavit Gallery, the Cork Artists' Collective and the National Sculpture Factory. The works range dizzyingly from Fla's Purge, a new work created for Art Trail by Cliff Dolliver of Melbourne's Black Hole Theatre which involves a 2.5 metre puppet exploring "an artist's search for inspiration" (Sirius Arts Centre), to new paintings of the West Cork coastline by Tim Goulding (Gallery 44). There is also a huge range of special events, talks and workshops.

The Arts Council chairman, Brian Farrell, mentioned in his interview last week with Robert O'Byrne in this newspaper that the appointment of an almost entirely new Arts Council had contributed to the communication lapses between the Council and the Executive: "It was a virtually new Council and we were on a fast learning curve." If Minster de Valera amends the Arts Act following the review which she has promised to undertake, to allow, for instance, for "rolling" membership of the Council, this would obviously make for more continuity. She may change the make and shape of the board, as described in the legislation, in other ways, too. This leads to the tantalising possibility that she might go ahead and change the make and shape of the current Council as early as next year, something that she would be within her rights to do.

The roar of the Celtic Tiger was definitely audible at two fine art auctions conducted by John De Vere White last week, one a De Vere art auction, the other a benefit event at which artists donated pieces to go towards funding for the RHA.

Buyers at auction are by nature cautious about works by living artists, but caution was thrown to the winds as work after work vastly exceeded reserves in flurries of competitive bidding. There were gasps of amazement as The Outsider, a fine painting by Martin Gale, went for £13,200. Other high points were a John Shinnors for £10,500, a small Louis le Brocquy watercolour for £9,500, a Tony O'Malley for £7,500, and modestly sized pictures by Sean McSweeney and Mary Lohan which each fetched £2,600. Mind you, it is true that none of the money from either sale goes to the artists, but doubtless the commercial galleries will have observed the results with interest.

Of far more general interest, surely, is the auction of "Hot Properties" being conducted through the most recent issue of Harpers and Queen. Rock reviewer Kevin Courtney is described as an "irresistible opportunity". "With gems such as Kevin going cheap, it is no wonder that the Emerald Isle has become such a mecca for the famous and fashionable."

Christmas may come early for some young Irish musicians; a forthcoming concert series aims to provide a platform for the most outstanding students from last summer's master-classes with top German musicians at the University of Limerick and, if the tour is successful, to bring them back to Germany for a reciprocal tour there.

Frank Duppenbecker, trumpeter, and organist Klaus Muller, along with Irish trumpeter John Walsh, will perform music by Mozart, Bach and Handel at Trinity College Chapel next Tuesday; and on Wednesday December 1st and Thursday December 2nd, the ensemble will be joined by horn player Paul Goodman for concerts at Glenstal Abbey and St Columba's Church in Ennis. The final concert will take place in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh on December 3rd.

frontrow@irish-times.ie