Mark Little, RTE's foreign affairs correspondent, has just returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan with a report on the conditions of Afghan refugees trapped just inside the Pakistani side of the border. More than 800,000 Afghans have been displaced since early last year as a result of drought and fighting between the ruling Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance. The crew, which included producer Eddie Doyle, cameraman Cedric Culleton and soundman Cormac Duffy, spent two weeks on location, travelling first to Pakistan, where they visited the Jalozai refugee camp in Peshawar. Tens of thousands of refugees live in harrowing conditions in this border camp, which the UN has described as one of the worst in the world. The crew then drove to Kabul, the Afghan capital, where the Taliban appointed them a minder for the duration of the shoot. Filming is heavily restricted in Afghanistan, but the crew shot more material than expected, including interviews with ordinary Afghans. They got access to villages affected by drought as well as interviews with the ministers for health and culture. The 35-minute Prime Time report will be shown on Wednesday at 9.30 p.m. on RTE 1.
THIS weekend sees hundreds of young and not-so-young hopefuls gather at the RDS in Dublin in a bid for stardom. More than 2,000 people applied to audition for a role presenting a television programme to be broadcast in the summer. Every applicant a staggering 1,000 people will be seen each day. This slim window of opportunity has not deterred people from travelling from England and Scotland to audition. There will be four producers, with four camera units recording each contestant's 30 seconds. Those who get the nod will be seen by a "mystery panel" of three, for more detailed scrutiny. The names of the judges are being kept under wraps until the June launch of Selection Box, the four-part series on the audition process.
A VISIT last year to the Comedy Cellar at the International Bar in Dublin by Anne-Marie O'Callaghan, RTE radio's development editor, prompted her to commission a comedy series that starts today on RTE Radio 1. Stand-Up Stories is a six-part series featuring some of Ireland's best-known comedians performing their own scripts. All-male affairs, they deal with coming of age. Today's show, at 11.02 a.m., features Kevin McDermott's A Smaller Than Life Character. The story is about a writer who in his youth dreamed of being larger than life, but with the wisdom of age realises he is a smaller-than-life character. We join him on a bus to Galway, where he hopes to sell a bilingual, futuristic version of the Easter Rising, set in 2016, to TG 4. The other comedians to be featured in the series - produced by Fiona Kelly with Barry Murphy as script editor - are Eddie Bannon, Kevin Gildea, Brendan Burke, Mark Doherty and Sean Kavanagh.
LYRIC FM celebrates its second birthday on Tuesday with a day of events in Dublin. The breakfast and lunchtime shows will be broadcast from St Stephen's Green, with the rest of the day's programmes coming from Blanchardstown's newly opened library, which is also hosting RTE's "Radio 75" exhibition. The latest JNLR figures for the Limerick-based station show a daily reach of about 100,000 listeners, or 2 per cent of the national radio audience.
ACROSS the water, the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, has embarked on a new career as a reporter for Tonight With Trevor McDonald, ITV's news magazine. She made her debut on Thursday night with a 20-minute report on obesity. Two years ago, Sarah Surviving Life, her Sky One chat show, was axed after attracting just 12,000 viewers. She has had more success in the US, recently standing in for one of the world's best-known chatshow hosts on CNN's Larry King Live. Perhaps mindful of the furore over the business interests of the British royal family, the duchess is thought not to have charged a fee.
mkearney@irish-times.com