Fair City

Fair City, Irelands answer to Eastenders is, in my opinion one of the most amateur productions ever to grace the screens of Irish television. The acting, on a whole is of the lowest standard I have ever seen, young schoolkids act better in school plays than the cast of Fair City! It is badly directed, acted and produced, most of the cast say their lines with no emotion or authenticity whatsoever, they all seem as if the have never had any training in acting school, because most of them are unconvincing. Characters seem to drop out of the series for weeks, maybe even months on end, then they suddenly reappear with no explanation as to where they were. Perhaps RTE who produce the show cannot afford to pay the entire casts wages week by week so they concentrate on a few characters in a particular storyline for a few weeks then when that story is dealt with, they bring back the cast who have been missing for ages. It is almost too embarrassing to watch due to the substandard 'acting' (for want of a better word!) and I would not recommend anyone to watch it unless they want to see how NOT to make a soap/drama. If you want to have a laugh at the very bad standard of acting and directing, watch Fair City. If you like well acted and produced shows then avoid this at all costs!

Recently a friend of mine who was visiting Ireland from Italy asked me to explain why so many Irish people laughed when they talked about the TV show Fair City. Judging by people's reaction to it he thought it must be brilliant new sitcom. I thought it would be best to show him an episode so he could see for himself why it had people doubling over laughing. Surprisingly the unbelievably poor quality of the show was not lost in translation. The story line, acting, and sets are universally recognised as pure unadulterated sewage.

The majority of people that commented on this already are completely within their right to express their disgust at the fact that this is shown on Irish TV and paid for by the Irish Tax payer! The one person standing up for the show so ardently obviously has some connection with it because nobody could be so naïve to think that the complaints are unwarranted.

If Edward D Wood Junior had ever had the opportunity to make a soap opera, he would have made Fair City. That is perhaps the best way to describe it to people outside Ireland. The sets are like something off a children's TV with the walls of every house or apartment painted blue, red, orange or green. Wallpaper does not exist in Fair City. The walls even shake when a door opens or closes… it's a shambles. There are only 5 places a character can be in the show, the Shop, a House, an office, the bistro, or the pub. There is no room for manoeuvre, every episode; these are the places the characters will be.

The "actors" are unique in the world of TV as they are perhaps the only actors to regularly be overshadowed by the performance of the set. The walls actually move more than some of their faces. The Irish state television RTE, regularly use these same actors as "celebrity" guests on their second rate talk shows. Its an absolute disgrace that people in Ireland can be on up to 40% rate of tax and be expected to enjoy listening to "Bella" from Fair City ( perhaps the most well known character and even then nobody knows his real name), talking about himself to another substandard product of RTE Ryan Tubridy! Everybody knows Irish TV is a closed shop ripe with nepotism and scarce on talent. Fair City is the perfect example of this. Friends and family getting jobs they clearly don't have the talent or intelligence to do. So don't listen to Miss (touched a nerve) eventsbydonna, you have a right to express your anger at this TV crime. Fair City and all the people responsible for it should be brought to justice! We deserve and demand a better return from our taxes!

I don't know how they manage to make it so bad. Every scene in the show goes exactly the same way. Actor walks in, regurgitates lines, reply from other actor, actor walks out. The actors aren't particularly bad, I've seen them in other stuff and they can act (sort of).

I can't say I could focus on the show long enough to pick up any plots, but what I've seen has been boring and painful. I do know one guy is dying of cancer at the moment, which you can only feel good about because all the actors play the worst of Dublin snobs that you just want to see die in the most horrible ways.

It's like going to visit your granny as a child and sitting in the middle of a group of old women talking about knitting, bunions or putting tea bags on their eyes. You just want to chew the table and pull your eyes out of your head.

On the plus side there may be adds on the other channels that provide better entertainment value than this half arsed tripe.

Fair City used to be good, but in recent times it really has went down hill. Issues like clerical sex abuse, brother/sister incest, drugs, suicide and teenage drinking have been brought in, just for the sake of it. Also the stories are becoming far too sensational, with another recent one involving the school principal's girlfirend having an affair with a student, who is dating her daughter.

This is a total change for the character, who originally was really straight laced and strict

Another thing that really annoys me is the fact that characters can just disappear for months on end. One of the characters, Stephen, has been missing for at least three or four months now. Maybe even since before Christmas! Storylines just concentrate on a group of characters for maybe a week or two, until its all changed and we are onto another group of characters. There's no real continuity.

Unless it gets a major overhaul, Fair City could be axed despite still being highly rated it just isn't the show it once was.

What a cast!If talent were electricity,they'd have enough to power up a city!Not a real city,obviously,but a tiny ant city,whose government has recently passed a series of stringent energy conservation laws.How this tripe managed to get on TV in the first place is quite befuddling.God awful.The older cast,I get the feeling,randomly wandered on to the set one day,and the producers hadn't the heart to ask them to leave.Their acting would suggest as much,because they certainly didn't come with any formal training.Or personality.Not that professional training is a must,but when half the cast look like something you'd get to haunt a house,and the other younger members are as wooden as the rest,with about as much talent too,it'd be nice to have something to fall back on,but in the case of 'Fair City',you'll be falling onto lazy,dumb, writing,and directing that would get you lost,even if all that was needed was a simple hello.Bloody awful.