detectives Tag Archive

1744

April 8, 2015 • devious theatre, vultures

Vultures – The Radio Series

Vultures Radio

Vultures, a radio series I wrote and directed and use my voice acting in, is currently airing on KCLR96FM in a production from Devious Theatre.

I’m not hugely experienced when it comes to making radio so this was a tough, but welcome, challenge. The idea of doing a murder mystery radio serial was too hard to resist and I absolutely overindulged myself in making this. I sure do love the ol’ dick fic.

Here’s the synopsis:

Vultures focuses on the private detectives of Vulture Private Investigations, a small time detective agency in south east Ireland. Janine Drew, Dan McGrain, Jim Vultour and Niall Tennyson are the detectives in question and the story follows them as they get caught up in a suspenseful murder mystery at the Detective Union Of Ireland AGM. The show follows the varying perspectives of the four bungling sleuths as they trawl the corridors of Wisteria Lodge, searching for a killer, quizzing a colourful cast of suspects and trying to figure out who killed Ireland’s most famous detective Basil Maguire? And why?

The cast for the series includes Stephen Colfer, Ross Costigan, John Doran, Amy Dunne, Seán Hackett, Ken McGuire, Niamh Moyles, Suzanne O’Brien and David Thompson. It was produced and engineered by Ken McGuire with Alan Slattery as associate producer and an original score from David Sheenan. Here’s a trailer we put together for the show.

It airs each weekday at 1.45pm and 5.45pm on KCLR96FM. You can check out all the episodes so far, right here.

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1466

December 17, 2012 • mycrofilms, vultures

Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time

We’ve just launched our penultimate episode of detective webcom Vultures. It’s called Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time and follows the titular sleuth as he attempts to get a mislaid diamond to a ruthless bounty hunter before his friends get horribly tortured. With hilarious results of course! This is probably my favourite episode of the second series so far as it replaces the mundane activities of ex-boyfriend stalking, sandwich stealing and writer stakeouts with a fast paced adventure. And running around is a lot more fun than sitting around.

It also continues the overall arc of Series 2 which sees the unemployed former detectives of V.P.I. being coaxed back into the detective life by their disillusioned former protegé Janine Drew. And like the first series, we’ve left it fairly late in the game to bring our villains to the fore (I like to keep ’em short and sweet). From the first episode we introduced the villainous presence of Johnny Curragh (who was first mentioned in hushed tones in Episode 5 of Series 1, The Adventure Of The Hidden Microfilm.) and his trio of villainous female agents known as the Blades. The first of Johnny’s Blades makes an appearance in this episode and Maeve Munroe is a ball busting bounty hunter who has tied up our heroes, awaiting McGrain’s rescue. Played by Amy Dunne, she’s a really psychotic, shouty addition to our little rogues gallery. Johnny’s Blades are our not too subtle version of Charlie’s Angels, albeit in villainous form and I’m pretty confident they’ll make a serious impact when the full trio unveil their fiendish, high kicking cackling and meanness in the last episode.

Speaking of which, the last (very final, like ever, done, fin) episode of Vultures (in webcom mode anyway) concludes the series with a rousing finale on December 23rd. That episode is entitled The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold and it marks our second Christmas set yarn. We thought it would be nice to finish the series as we started it in 2007 with a Christmas episode and the new episode has plenty of nods to the first one. Although it’s going to be a much better episode. Certainly more exciting and the shoot (which we completed on December 3rd) was a whole tonne of fun. We’ve got a lot better at this webcom making lark since then although we’ve made the second series with a lot less time and a lot less money… oh, the things we could do with time and money. But still, I’m thrilled with the team that has come together for the new series and very happy with how it’s all turned out. The Dicks Who Came In From The Cold should tie the whole thing up quite nicely and complete what we set out to do exactly 5 years ago in December 2007: make a really good Irish webcom and give it to people for free. We hope we’ve succeeded. Here’s a handy little embed of Dan McGrain In The Nick Of Time.

If you want to get your fill of Vultures, you can subscribe for free on iTunes, you can also subscribe on YouTube. For all information on the project including character profiles and all episodes and the various bric a brac, check out VulturesPI.com

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1443

May 14, 2012 • mycrofilms, vultures

A Movie About Dicks, Private Dicks

We were delighted to get accepted into the inaugural Digital Comedy Lab with Vultures back in February. But now we’ll be even more delighted if we actually win the Digital Comedy Lab outright. If we do, we would receive a €50,000 budget to make a Vultures mockumentary feature film. Nice, eh?

It would be a fantastic achievement for us after the last couple of years work on Vultures. It’s pretty cool to have a webcom out there that people can watch and enjoy but it would be even cooler to have a feature film that people could watch and enjoy. Our Digital Comedy Lab trailer outlines the plot for a prospective Vultures movie, which works as kind of a Year Zero for Vultures (Please let me get away with using that term, I’ve wanted to for so long!). The trailer spoilers the fuck out of the new series anyway, as the prospective film would lead on from it, showing Janine quitting college. It then moves into her rallying the unemployed dicks together as they truck off to Ireland’s first ever detective convention. Then there’s a murder! So, it’s a classic closed house murder mystery with a host of suspects and motives and twists and our bumbling heroes are thrust into the middle of it. The twist on the format though is that it’s done mockumentary style which has some very tasty possibilities for a murder mystery (which is completely new ground… unlike the rest of Vultures, ho ho!). Our trailer also showcases us doing FEATURE FILM type things like showing our dicks all dickied up, Vultour and Janine without their glasses and Jack Street in a real mink coat. Speaking of the trailer, here it is!

If we get to make it, I assure you, it will be very funny. And clever. And exciting. And it will have comedy and detectives in it. If you want to see a Vultures mockumentary feature that’s like the bastard of Scooby Doo and Agatha Christie playing Cluedo, there’s something you can do for us. Watch the trailer. Share the trailer. Like the trailer. Show it to people, maybe keep clicking on it, go to multiple computers and play it. That kind of ethical stuff. Hey, it’s a competition right? In fairness, if the folks at BeActive hate our story and think our trailer is the drizzling shits, they probably won’t commission it anyway. BUT if our trailer gets enough views, it might help persuade them that Vultures is worth making. All help would be greatly appreciated.

And if it doesn’t get made, how will we carry on with Vultures you may ask? Eh…. radio? Or maybe RTÉ might pick it up…?

Okay, radio.

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