RTÉ’s Centenary: ‘Best thing since Riverdance’

Twitter had never seen anything like it.

Usually, when there’s a major Irish TV spectacle, the producers switch off their wi-fi and put their fingers in their ears until the abuse dies down. Not this time. As Centenary unfolded on RTÉ 1 last night, the online response swelled from positive to enthusiastic to ecstatic.

“Best thing since Riverdance”.

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Some of Ireland’s best known singers, musicians and performers – including Imelda May and Gavin James – came together for ‘Centenary’, which told the story of modern Ireland through music, dance and song. The show was broadcast live from Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on RTÉ One on Easter Monday. Photograph: Conor McCabe

“Welling up here at home.”

“So proud to be Irish.”

And, most remarkably of all, “Makes me happy to pay the licence fee.”

RTÉ had already had a good day with its joint curation of Reflecting the Rising events across Dublin and around the country. Last night, though, the broadcaster pulled off something pretty remarkable, distilling the multiple strands and narratives surrounding the Easter Rising into a emotionally resonant spectacle blending music, dance and poetry, combining live performances from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre with recorded elements from Kilmainham Gaol and the Garden of Remembrance.

It could have been dreadful – and at times it teetered on the edge of kitsch. The opening “mythological” sequences hewed a little too close to the Michael Flatley template of bare-chested Celticism for comfort.

Jack L seemed to have left his voice in the dressing room for The Minstrel Boy. But the production rapidly found its own stride with a string of haunting performances, from Seán Keane's Wrap The Green Flag Round Me Boys to Caoineadh na dTrí Mhuire, beautifully sung by Iarla Ó Lionáird. Aoife Scott, Danny O'Reilly & Róisín O's performance of Grace and Conor O'Brien's Change, both filmed in Kilmainham, were moving, but the show-stopper was Sibéal Ní Chasaide's spine-chilling rendiction of Patrick Cassidy's version of Mise Éire.

Throughout all of this, the staging, lighting and choreography were dramatic without over-egging the cake. Choosing Philomena Begley and Imelda May as the musical bridges to contemporary Ireland was both apposite and witty, as was the appropriation of Kermit the Frog's It's Not Easy Being Green.

A carefully assembled film and audio montage covering the ambiguous, messy, tragic, bloody, contrary stories of the last few decades took the Reeling in the Years format and twisted it into something stranger, more compelling and somehow more true. The delivery of each line of the Proclamation from a different place in the global Irish diaspora was a nice idea in theory; in practice it was so beautifully performed by the participants, and so well shot and edited, that it transcended any suspicions of tipping the hat to the emigrant perspective.

After all that, the last few performances were a slight disappointment. Celine Byrne is a magnificent singer, but surely something better could have been found for her than the MOR cheese of You Raise Me Up, and the reveal that a large segment of the audience was in fact a flash choir didn't quite come off. The wedding band theme continued with CT Wilkinson's rendition of One. For the first time all evening, Twitter twitched with irritation. A hundred different permutations of "Bono's got very old" flashed across the screen.

But it didn’t really matter.

The night had already been won. As the show concluded with the bouncy ceili pop of Seo Linn, Michael D Higgins - now wearing his “out on the town” tie - strode out for a few well-chosen words (what a weekend he’s had), RTÉ, Centenary creator Cillian Fennell and his entire production team could relax in the knowledge that they had delivered a spectacle that pulled off the tricky feat of being entertaining and serious, moving and witty, contemporary and respectful of the past.