Edna O'Brien

This topical debate series based on Any Questions? typically features politicians from at least the three major political parties as well as other public figures who answer pre-selected questions put to them by a carefully selected audience.

Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

The Meaning of Life is an Irish television programme, the first series of which was broadcast on RTÉ One in 2009. It is presented by the veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne. Each episode involves Byrne interviewing a well-known public figure. The series is broadcast each Sunday night at 22:20. In 2010 The Meaning of Life returned for both a second and, later, a third series. Interviews with former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and actors Gabriel Byrne and Brenda Fricker during the second series attracted media attention when they spoke of their religious habits and child sexual abuse respectively. Gay Byrne appeared on The Late Late Show on 18 December 2009 to discuss the programme. A fourth series soon followed. Then a fifth series from January 2012. And a sixth in October 2012. And a seventh in January 2013.

Ruth Patchett has it all: a large, warty body, a standard suburban home, a couple of unruly children, a dog, a cat and a guinea pig. She also has Bobbo, her unfaithful accountant husband who resents her very existence. Bobbo wants, and is wanted by, romance novelist Mary Fisher, who lives in a lighthouse by the sea. When Bobo leaves Ruth for Mary, Ruth decides that Mary doesn't know the first thing about love, and she's gonna teach her.

18 short plays written especially for TV, an opportunity for up-and-coming directors such as floor manager Alan Clarke, who ended up doing 10 of the episodes. Some top ranking performers were attracted to the series.

The visionary work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential writers America has ever produced. Interweaving his eventful biography with carefully selected excerpts from his iconic short stories, novels, and non-fiction, the series reveals the brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and complicated man behind the myth, and the art he created.

A story of loss told through a daughter looking back on her mother’s life in rural Ireland who receives a package one day from the postman.

Edna O’Brien is interviewed by Russell Harty about her writing and her relationship with Ireland, as explored in her latest non-fiction book Mother Ireland.

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.

A unique anthology of six short vignettes on the subject of love, all of them written, directed and produced by women.

An Englishwoman seeking to escape her marriage arrives at a French hotel.

Six new plays showcasing female writers, three set in the 1930s and three in the 1970s.

The venomous and amoral wife of a wealthy architect tries, any way she can, to break up the blossoming romance between her husband and his new mistress; a good-natured young widow who holds a dark past.

A naive young country girl moves to Dublin and finds herself drawn to a sophisticated author twice her age.

John Connor is a soon-to-retire hitman that agrees to take on one last job. After years plying his deadly trade, he has finally had enough. Seeking to retire to Dublin and maybe salvage his dying marriage, Connor wants to leave the lonely world of the marksman behind him and melt into the background. Unfortunately, his handler O'Neal is reluctant to let him go, and, after much coertion, manages to talk him into accepting one final job.

Peter Whitehead’s disjointed Swinging London documentary, subtitled “A Pop Concerto,” comprises a number of different “movements,” each depicting a different theme underscored by music: A early version of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” plays behind some arty nightclub scenes, while Chris Farlowe’s rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time” accompanies a young woman’s description of London nightlife and the vacuousness of her own existence. In another segment, the Marquess of Kensington (Robert Wace) croons the nostalgic “Changing of the Guard” to shots of Buckingham Palace’s changing of the guard, and recording act Vashti are seen at work in the studio. Sandwiched between are clips of Mick Jagger (discussing revolution), Andrew Loog Oldham (discussing his future) – and Julie Christie, Michael Caine, Lee Marvin, and novelist Edna O’Brien (each discussing sex). The best part is footage of the riot that interrupted the Stones’ 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.

The film, based on the novel of the same title by Edna O'Brien, is a dark story about love and land set in County Clare in the West of Ireland.

An account of the life and work of Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941) narrated by US actress Anjelica Huston.

An intense court case involving divorce proceedings is adjourned for lunch. Husband and wife then discover they are both going to be eating in the same cafeteria.