Andy Dillion

About the researcher

I am a Screenwriter, a lecturer in both Screenwriting and Comedy Writing and a second year PhD researcher. Depsite having worked across the gamut of Screenwriting genres - horror, comedy, heist, psychological, most of my scripts featured a recurring pub/bar element, given that my early career was in hospitality management. I have a keen interest in regionality as a writer and being able to decode a place, so that place might play an active part in a writers script. As a Belfast writer, the complexities of 'identity' is often at the forefront of my work. I am a member of the Writers Guild of Ireland and the Screenwriting Research Network.

Andy Dillion
Andy Dillion

    PhD abstract

    Thesis title

    Blood Pours Slower than Rye: Representations of the Irish pub in contemporary crime genre film and television: A critical-creative thesis

    Abstract

    This practice-led research project seeks to frame a fictional Irish Pub called Madigan's Rest in a key time period in U.S. history – namely, the wake of Martin Luther King's assassination. Madigan's rest is a crime series focused on generations of one Irish family in America between the 1960s and modern day.
    Although two of the main cast of the show are present here, two Irish brothers called Michael and Pat, the focus of this scene is another key character called Pious Adams – a black man who will become an important part of the family across the four planned seasons.
    My script seeks to bring to the forefront, what I see as being one of the key issues in the representation of the Irish pub – the fact that the space is never shown as a working pub. Throughout this scene, whilst each man has a number of things taking up their attention, the focus is always brought back to the function of the space. Hopefully there will be a bit of story in there too, identifying a tonal framework for my show that at this early stage shows an appreciation for the historical and cultural backgrounds that will feature throughout.

    Research interests

    • Screenwriting
    • Storytelling
    • Film
    • Television
    • Crime
    • Drama
    • Comedy
    • Genre
    • Irish studies
    • Identity
    • National identity
    • American studies
    • Spatial theory
    • Psychogeography
    • Built environment
    • Urban studies
    • Pubs
    • Hospitality
    • Service ecology