Fair City

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!

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.

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.

Compared to the soap operas that are based in Great Britain and Australia, Irelands Fair City looks amateurish in it's execution. Set in the fictional town of carrigstown in Dublin City it charters the lives of its inhabitants in the area. Among them is the business elite consisting of Pub owners, a deli, and a restaurant called the Bistro plus other modern day business's you would expect to find in Ireland. Along with the owners of these premises we also meet there customers and between these places of business and pleasure and the citizens of carrigstown's homes we are given what the folks in RTE's scripting rooms think is their version of Irish life.

Fair City is of a very poor standard and in this day and age it really should not be tolerated. The acting is so bad that for many of it's cast it is first time on television, and for many more it will be their last. The problem lies in that many of the actors have been working in theater for many years that they are not able to relate to the camera. What maybe considered as consistent acting on the boards of Irelands national theaters can be considered as a wooden performance on television. What's worse is that you would expect that with time and experience that they might improve but it is never to be. The acting in this is so bad that the Fair City cast makes the cast of Hollyoak's look like Academy Award material.

The story lines that are crafted are sloppy and listening to the words it makes you wonder was it five year old that were let loose at the type writer. The story lines of course are supposed to reflect modern Irish therefore most of the men by the time they hit 40 will be on their third marriage have two children to two different women. We will show up at a wedding in pursuit of the bride whom we have discovered as the love of our lives. She'll die tragically in car crash but we will end up looking after the kids whom are beginning to get difficult because of their age and are seriously becoming an handful. But we will still find time to have a drink in a nightclub that is owned by one of Irelands most dangerous gangland leaders. But not before we have battled alcoholism, impotence, went bankrupt and paid our mortgage. After witnessing some of these story lines I only wish the lifestyle of the Irish male was as exciting. If for any other reason I would not half to sit down and watch this drivel called Fair City. Of course to be truthful most soaps are overly dramatic and that is the whole point to their existence. But other soaps while do it better by employing actors that are somewhat like their characters in real life and writing decent scripts.

I hate this soap with a passion. I find it is a real pity that a the majority of Irelands population are put off by it's crap acting and writing yet it is allowed to continue to run on television. Crap. 1 out of 10.

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!