The Folks on the Hill | |
---|---|
Country of origin | Northern Ireland |
Production | |
Running time | 15 mins |
Original release | |
Network | from 2001 on BBC Radio Ulster; from 2004 BBC One (Northern Ireland) |
The Folks on the Hill is a satirical sketch show, which started in January 2001 as a Saturday morning BBC Radio Ulster broadcast. [1] In 2004, it evolved into an animated television show, first aired on 9 January 2004, on BBC One Northern Ireland. [2] In its 10th year, the final, 17th series was broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster from Saturday 8 October [3] until 12 November 2011, the day before writer and voice-over star Sean Crummey died. [4]
The show is a light-hearted, comic parody of the prominent figures of Northern Irish politics, and occasionally other politicians including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bertie Ahern and George W. Bush. The term 'folks on the hill' refers to the Northern Irish parliament and government at Stormont Hill.
The programme was written by Belfast impressionist, Sean Crummey, animated by Liam O'Neill [1] (later Ciaran Boyle) and produced by Owen McFadden. [1] The music was by Paul Rocks. Female voice impersonations were by Kathy Clugston, who provided the voices for Anne Robinson, Iris Robinson, Camilla, the Queen, Bairbre de Brun and many others. [3]
Carrickfergus is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It sits on the north shore of Belfast Lough, 11 miles (18 km) from Belfast. The town had a population of 28,141 at the 2021 census. It is County Antrim's oldest town and one of the oldest towns in Ireland as a whole. Carrickfergus Castle, built in the late 12th century at the behest of Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy, was the capital of the Earldom of Ulster. After the earldom's collapse, it remained the only English outpost in Ulster for the next four centuries. Carrickfergus was the administrative centre for Carrickfergus Borough Council, before this was amalgamated into the Mid and East Antrim District Council in 2015, and forms part of the Belfast Metropolitan Area. It is also a townland of 65 acres, a civil parish and a barony.
BBC Northern Ireland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Iris Robinson is a former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician in Northern Ireland. She is married to Peter Robinson, who was First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2008 to 2016.
Peter David Robinson is a retired Northern Irish politician who served as First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2008 until 2016 and Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 2008 until 2015. Until his retirement in 2016, Robinson was involved in Northern Irish politics for over 40 years, being a founding member of the DUP along with Ian Paisley.
BBC Radio Ulster is a Northern Irish national radio station owned and operated by BBC Northern Ireland, a division of the BBC. It was established on New Year's Day 1975, replacing what had been an opt-out of BBC Radio 4.
Colin Murray is a radio and television presenter from Northern Ireland. He has hosted the Channel 4 game show Countdown since 2022.
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Q Radio is a Northern Irish radio station. It broadcasts to Greater Belfast on 96.7 MHz FM and on DAB Digital Radio across all of Northern Ireland. From 5 April 2007, Citybeat became available on 102.5FM for North Belfast, Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus. On 2 November 2007, Citybeat launched a third FM transmitter also broadcasting on 102.5FM for Bangor. Citybeat reaches a weekly audience of 127,000 listeners in Belfast, around 22% of the adult population. It has won both Arqiva 'Station of the Year' and Sony Awards. The station was rebranded as Q Radio on-air at 6pm on Sunday 9 August 2015.
Kathy Clugston is a Northern Irish presenter, newsreader and continuity announcer on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC World Service.
The media in Northern Ireland are closely linked to those in the rest of the United Kingdom, and also overlap with print, television, and radio in the Republic of Ireland.
The 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election took place on Thursday, 5 May, following the dissolution of the Northern Ireland Assembly at midnight on 24 March 2011. It was the fourth election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998.
Sean Rafferty MBE is a Belfast-born, Northern Irish broadcaster, now best known for his work on BBC Radio 3.
Sam Hanna Bell was a Scottish-born Northern Irish novelist, short story writer, playwright, and broadcaster.
Seán Crummey was a Belfast playwright, actor and comic impressionist who is most notable as both the writer and the male voice-over star of The Folks on the Hill, a hugely successful, popular programme that started in 2001 and ran for over 10 years with a total of seventeen radio and animated television series. The show is considered by many to be one of BBC NI's most successful programmes due to its longevity and popularity.
This is a timeline of the history of Ulster Television. It provides the ITV network service for Northern Ireland.
Diona Doherty is an Irish actress, writer and comedian from Derry. She starred in BBC Northern Ireland's Soft Border Patrol. She played a Ukrainian student in an episode of Channel 4's Derry Girls. She has been a panellist on The Blame Game, since 2021.
This is a timeline of the development of radio in Northern Ireland.
"The Folks Who Live On the Hill" (1937) is a ballad written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern. (Note that unlike the show, there is no "the" before "folks" in the song title.) For more information see Darby and Joan.
The Folks on the Hill at BBC Online