Aidan Gillen and Stuart Carolan: Original gangsters

Stars: ****

One of the big hits at this year’s Electric Picnic has turned out to be the Arts Council’s Literary Stage. Home to a honourable city of writers and readers, it was packed to the rafters all day.

The biggest crowd by far was to see Love/Hate creator Stuart Carolan and actor Aidan Gillen (John Boy in the hit crime drama) talk to Sinead Gleeson about the series.

“Most British TV is rubbish” was Carolan’s blunt, unarguable reasoning about why Love/Hate was so influenced by the US approach to TV. There’s real ambition in American television, he reckoned, thus “the big pull” towards how the TV masters work Stateside on their shows.

Those who would claim that Love/Hate glamorises crime got short shrift from Gillen. It was obvious from the narrative arc, he pointed out, that the show got “darker and less fun” in later episodes. Plus, he said to great laughter, “just look at me - obviously I’m not a gangster.”