Wicklow County Council recently rezoned 172 acres of land near Ashford after being told that Ardmore Studios would leave Wicklow for Kildare unless they could remove to the proposed site at Ashford.
Untrue: the first Ardmore heard it was "moving" anywhere was in the newspaper reports of the council rezoning. The landowner, Joseph O'Connell, who stands to earn millions from the rezoning, now says that the inclusion in the rezoning submission of claims about Ardmore's possible departure from Wicklow was an "inadvertent mistake", and anyway, that he intends to develop major studios there.
Well, quite. Making films is just as easy as making "inadvertent mistakes" or milking cows, or whatever Joe O'Connell has been doing with his Wicklow acres so far. It's terribly simple. All he needs is a video camera, or if not that, a Box Brownie and a cassette recorder, and he's in the film business. Strategic alliances are the kernel of all successful businesses, and we understand that Joe O'Connell has struck one up with a local supermarket.
The first Joseph O. Connell Fillum Studios project, a remake of Ben Hur, foundered on copyright problems, so he has renamed his project "Bent Hoor". There is of course a truly hair-raising chariot race, which has been created without regard to cost in the Ballyhenry bog meadow. Roman chariots being almost impossible to acquire these days, the race will involve two supermarket trolleys and a pram providentially rescued from an illegal nuclear and bacteriological dump some miles away. Since horses are far too large for such vehicles, sheep will haul the chariots at terrifying speeds of up to 5 m.p.h., taking care to avoid th'ould ditch where the heifer got stuck last November.
The film will be written, produced and directed by the movie magnate Joseph
O. Connell himself, who has invested in a baseball hat (a Wickla hill-farmer's cloth cap) and a director's chair (a deck-chair from Bray beach), so establishing him as a serious film-maker. Moreover, he will play the leading man. Replies from Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez and Sharon Stone to job offers in this Joseph O. Connell production appear to have been delayed. Just typical of An Post these days.
Such problems are not deflating Joseph O. Connell's ambitions. He is particularly keen on the space genre, hence his first production "Spar Wars," which rather happily encapsulates the name of his main sponsor. This film will be shot over a full week, with no expense spared, and will feature Johnny Depp, Ewan McGregor, Bruce Willis, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and George Clooney - that is, when An Post finally gets its finger out.
It will be filmed on location, in the milking parlour, with interior shoots being located in both the O'Connell bathroom and the hall. Members of the O'Connell family provide the supporting cast. A sound boom has already been constructed using a tin, a length of cotton-thread and a broom-handle. There has been talk of a second video camera being borrowed in order to get the different camera angles many film-goers seem to expect these days, no matter how unrealistically. Editing will be by Muriel, the local dog-groomer, whose skill with the scissors knows no bounds (we prudently overlook that time when a he-spaniel entered the salon as Bobby and exited, rather crestfallen, as Roberta).
Joseph O. Connell Fillum Studios take the musical genre seriously too. The company is hoping to set both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake to music. Leopold Bloom will be played by Tom Cruise, Molly Bloom will be played by Scarlett Johannson, and Molly's right hand will be played by Antonio Banderas. Music and lyrics will be by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice - though, once again, hold-ups in the post have delayed binding legal confirmation of the fine details.
Joseph O. Connell intends to build a lavish re-creation of central Dublin, 1904 in his tool-shed, using the very best of left-over bean-boxes from Spar, and Talbot Street will be sedulously re-enacted by his herd of Friesians, which have been attending acting classes. The cows are also hoping for parts in the forthcoming Joseph O. Connell Fillum Studios production, "Michael Collins - the Musical" - perhaps as Black and Tans. To be sure, the make-up is a little tougher this way, and the cattle don't enjoy walking round on their hind legs, but nonetheless, this hugely slashes labour costs. And another thing: no problems with unions or with having to clean the toilets.
This will be a slightly amended version of Michael J. Collins's life, in order to cater for American expectations. In the Joseph O. Connell Fillum Studios production, Michael J. Collins merely pretends to die at Béal na mBláth, rather like Paul Newman in The Sting, and is smuggled in a coffin back to Dublin. Here Lady Lavery (pencil in Madonna) sings Michael O. Connell's own, recently penned song, "Oh What a Beautiful Mourning", while Arthur Griffith (Sean Connery) tap-dances the length of the Pro-Cathedral, and Winston Churchill (Arnold Schwarzenegger, to be confirmed) and Eamon de Valera (Silvester Stallone, also tbc) sing the duet to celebrate Collins's recent election victory, "Michael Rode The Vote, Asthore, Hallelujah". The cast will conclude by holding hands and singing, to the tune of "Some Enchanted Evening", Joseph O. Connell's deathless lyric, "Inadvertent Mistake".
This is, of course, the perfect ending, since unintended blunders are just about the only way we ever learn the truth in Ireland.