Almost a decade ago writer/director Mark O’Connor was filming his debut feature, Between the Canals, in and around Sheriff Street in Dublin’s inner city when the idea for his new crime drama series Darklands was ignited by a terrifying incident.

On the eve of filming the final scene of the film, which would see lead actor Peter Coonan’s character shot in the head in his car on the street opposite Nocter’s pub, the scene played out for real when a young man on a bicycle fatally shot a man in the head as he sat in his car.

Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.

Log In

New to Independent.ie? Create an account

“It was literally the exact same way the scene was written. It was like a mirror,” explains Mark. “We were really hit hard. We decided to move the scene to a different location and we shot it in Summerhill out of respect for the families. That’s when the seed of the idea came to me, of a teenager being drawn into that world.”

At the time two local families were embroiled in a bloody feud and people were killed. There were many other incidents around Sheriff Street too – shootings and stabbings. “A guy attacked guys with a knife and there were kids dealing outside the shop,” says O’Connor. There was also a fight, with weapons, on Henry Street, just off O’Connell Street which has inspired a scene in the upcoming third episode of Darklands, O’Connor’s six-part drama which debuted on Virgin Media One this week.

At the centre of Darklands is Damien, a 16-year-old boy from a decent family with dreams of becoming an MMA star who finds himself drawn into gangland through circumstance. O’Connor draws heavily on his own experience growing up in Dublin obsessed with martial arts and, as a filmmaker, researching and working in Dublin city. Between the Canals was precipitated by two years of research in Sheriff Street in the after-schools projects, working with teenagers, some of whom went on to act in the film. In the name of authenticity O’Connor conducted similarly immersive research before King of the Travellers and the highly-acclaimed Cardboard Gangsters.

It was his time on Sheriff Street, however, which bears the heaviest influence on Darklands. “I wanted to explore it for a reason, to see why it happens rather than just, ‘this is an exciting idea’ – it was to examine it, to examine society really, without trying to be preachy. It kind of came from this question of why and how does it happen where two families are against each other to the point where they’re willing to kill each other?”

Originally titled The Sheriff Street Feud, the project became Bubble, then Chrysalis, and finally, Darklands. Co-writer Adam Coates came on board after O’Connor approached his family with a script he was writing about the notorious Westies gang for his masters in IADT. Adam’s older brother Shane had been the leader of the notorious Blanchardstown crime gang. One of 11 children born into a respectable family, Shane chose the criminal life and was 34 when he disappeared in February 2004 after moving to Spain’s Costa Blanca, where he and associate Stephen Sugg tried to infiltrate the drugs trade. Two years later, their bodies were found encased in six tonnes of concrete in an industrial estate near Torrevieja.

O’Connor approached the family as he had no insight into the gang beyond tabloid headlines. However, he ultimately he passed the Westies script on to Adam, who is an actor and writer himself, as he “felt a bit weird” writing this story about a tragic episode in the family’s past. Darklands is something else entirely although Adam has contributed elements of his experience of life with a gang member to the script.

“It’s not based on the Westies, it’s not based on Shane Coates,” says O’Connor. “There’s a few elements of Adam and Shane in there, like the instance of the brother going missing – that’s basically Shane, and Laura holding the gun.” Adam’s other brother Christian also inspired a scene in which the teenage Damien is pulled from his bed by gardai. However, O’Connor says they “made a conscious decision not to make the Westies.”

What they did want was authenticity, and this informed casting decisions too. Several of the younger cast members had never acted prior to the project, including the lead, Dane Whyte O’Hara. It was a “huge risk” taking a punt on them given the shoot was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it seven weeks long with no rehearsals or time for laboured instruction. “I did it before and I said, ‘Next time I’m not going to do that again’ but I keep doing it!” laughs O’Connor of his pursuit of inexperienced actors. “But I think there’s a huge amount of talent there. I really do. We’ll see in the future where they go. Look what happened with Between the Canals and Peter Coonan and Barry Keoghan, Stephen Clinch, Stephen Jones, Robbie Walsh. I can’t be that bad [at casting new talent] if Barry’s in the new Marvel!” he laughs.

It’s impossible to discuss Darklands without referencing the gangland drama Love/Hate which aired on RTE for five seasons. Aside from the obvious crime drama comparison (although they’re in fact very different), there are other connections. Love/Hate favourites Keoghan and Coonan first appeared in Between the Canals. Coonan also appeared in O’Connor’s short Stalker before he landed the role of Fran in Love/Hate. John Connors, meanwhile, had impressed in King of the Travellers before he landed the pivotal role of Patrick in season five of Carolan’s crime series.

Read more: Darklands review: Enough energy, grit and quality, behind and in front of the camera, to potentially rival Love/Hate

The projects are further intertwined; as Love/Hate was reaching its climax, O’Connor was working with Virgin Media Television (then TV3) on a project called Bear, which was set to star Connors a Traveller man. However, as Love/Hate reached its denouement, O’Connor decided to scrap Bear. “After nine months of development, Love/Hate season five came out and there were similarities so I thought, this is going to look like a spin-off. He had just killed Nidge so it was going to look like Patrick the pipe-bomb maker.” So, he returned to his original idea of The Sheriff Street Feuds.

Darklands is set in Bray rather than Sheriff Street, perhaps to escape those lazy comparisons to Carolan’s series. It’s a show that could be set anywhere, says O’Connor, who references the current feuds taking place across the suburbs and beyond; “It’s happening in Dundalk and Cork and it happened in Limerick. It’s a nationwide thing. It could be England, America. I think it could be anywhere really.” Bray is a small suburb, but the world O’Connor and Coates have created with a third writer is huge. There is scope for several more series depending on how Darklands plays out. The critics have been positive, the Twittersphere less so, but O’Connor is hoping the series is afforded more time to bed-in by viewers.

The second episode of Darklands airs on Virgin Media One on Monday October 14 at 9pm. Catch up on the first episode on Virgin Media Player.

Read more: John Boland’s week in TV: Darklands looks set to be a crime drama worth following

‘Every morning I wake up, I have to forgive myself’ – Dublin actor Darren Healy on fatal assault

Source: Read Full Article