Juvenalia

Playwright Peter Dunne joins Alan & Ellen to talk about Jack Clayton’s extremely terrifying 1961 horror film The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr. We talked about all kinds of stuff: watching inappropriate things when you’re young which is basically the theme of Juvenalia, creepy children, Salem, Amityville, local mythology, whether any of us actually believe in the supernatural (spoiler: some...

Anna Carey is a journalist and the author of the Real Rebecca series of YA books and the upcoming The Making Of Mollie about the Irish suffragette movement. She sat down with Alan and Ellen for a DELIGHTFUL chat about 80s British girl’s comics like Mandy and Bunty. It was very informative and fun and I urge you to seek out some of the comics for yourself.  Follow Juvenalia on Twitter   J...

One of our favourite standups and people Andréa Farrell joined Alan & Ellen to talk about Stephen Spielberg’s classic Jaws. Inspired by Spielberg’s sparing use of the shark in Jaws, we often talked about everything and anything besides Jaws, making the bits where we actually talked about the film all the more special. Make sure to listen to the whole thing as at some point we decided to record...

Shawna Scott is the founder of Sex Siopa, Ireland’s first health and design focused sex shop. She’s also a Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion fanatic who has been waiting “her entire life” to talk about it at length. She talked to Alan and Sarah for a long time about the film, being a bit of a weirdo growing up, the Pacific North-West, choreographed dance routines with Alan Cumming, the magic...

Elva Carri is the founder of Girl Crew, a brilliant idea that’s been changing the lives of women all over the world since it started. She joined Alan and Ellen to talk about The Den, another brilliant idea that changed lives all over Ireland in the 80s, 90s, and part of the 00s. We talked about Ray D’Arcy, Ian Dempsey, the other humans who we didn’t remember all that much, Zig & Zag, Zuppy, Du...

Comedian, actor, writer, philanthropist, and host of The Alison Spittle Show, Alison Spittle, joins Alan and Sarah for a trip down memory lane as we talk about our wild and varied experiences with chat rooms and message boards. Alison was an old-fashioned troll, the good funny kind not the ones that harass people on Twitter, Alan was boring but earnest, and Sarah forged deep friendships. We cover...

Comedian Teresa Coyne joins Alan and Ellen to talk about the lesser-known but actually quite good YA series The Saddle Club. It was kind of an equine Babysitter’s Club. Teresa was a fan, Alan’s now a convert, Ellen was jetlagged. A good time was had by all. We learn all about the Saddle Club and Teresa's own history with horses stopping along the way to learn the history of dressage, horse mainten...

Darragh McCausland is a writer whose work has appeared in The Dublin Review, Lighthouse, Gorse, and Stonecutter. On this episode of Juvenalia he talks to Alan and Sarah about, well, loads of stuff really but we start with early first-person shooter Wolfenstein 3D. From there we move on to shareware, being bad at computer games, isometric viewpoints, Eve Online, multiplayer vs singleplayer, the Ata...

Journalist and Legless In Dublin creator Louise Bruton joins Alan & Ellen to talk about Wes Craven's Scream. We're also joined by Louise's dog Harry who can be heard voicing his appreciation for the combination of vulnerability and humour that Neve Campbell brings to the role of Sidney. We also talk about Kevin Williamson's vast pop culture empire, the Scream quadrilogy in general, the de...

2FM DJ and writer Louise McSharry joins Alan Maguire and Sarah Maria Griffin to talk about 80s CLASSIC Dirty Dancing. We brought a wide range of Dirty Dancing experience to the episode. Louise has seen Dirty Dancing many, many times. Alan saw it once when he was like eight or nine. Sarah watched it for the first time that morning. Did she like it? Have a listen and find out. What else did we talk...

Oh My God What A Complete Aisling co-author Emer McLysaght joined Alan Maguire and Ellen Tannam to talk about Jurassic Park – the movie and the book, palaeontology, transition year work experience, the importance of posters, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Lex, early 90s knock off merchandise, phone covers, entering competitions in women’s magazines, Gilmore Girls, and loads more. It’s a fun...

Academic and writer Sinéad Burke of Minnie Mélange joins Alan and Sarah Maria Griffin to talk about the many ways in which Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been a part of her life. We talk about pantos, romantic gestures, Sinéad’s amazing parents and family, the Poll Tax, Alternative Miss Ireland, Willow, Representations of little people in the media, making some of the seven dwarfs fe...

Giles Brody of The Mess Around and The Sunday Sermon Podcast talks to Alan and Ellen Tannam about Ghostbusters. At least that was the plan. It turned into more of a Ghostbusters-themed chat. We enjoyed it though, hopefully you will too. We talked about a lot of things including bingo playing taxi drivers, Eddie Murphy, Nas, John Belushi, Animal House, Michael Cera, Be Here Now, Crystal Skull Vodka...

Writer Jeanne Sutton joins Alan Maguire and Sarah Maria Griffin to talk about Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. We have a good long chat about things like, but not limited to, Disney On Ice, big books, romance novels, problematic favs, Lena Dunham, angry wardrobes, if you were Belle would you stay in the castle, Twitter beefs, DVD commentaries, Les Miserables, The 10th Kingdom, The Wolf Among Us, Jup...

Welcome to the first of the Juvenalia minisodes. In this minisode, Alan Maguire and Ellen Tannam do a dramatic reading of chapter one of R.L. Stine’s Point Horror classic, Beach Party. More chapters will follow in future minisodes. Alan and Ellen have never read Beach Party and are excited to see where this all leads. Not much more to say about this one really. Enjoy.  Juvenalia original artw...

Alan and Ellen talk to comedian Damon Blake of Fox and Blake about the mind-bending 1990 anti-drugs cartoon Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue in which The Smurfs, Alvin & The Chipmunks, Alf, Garfield, Winnie The Pooh, Slimer, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Muppet Babies, and Bugs Bunny team up to convince a drug-taking teen to change his ways. It’s powerful stuff.  We cover a lot of...

Alan Maguire and Ellen Tannam talk to writer Sarah Maria Griffin about a film that was important to her as a teenager, The Fifth Element.  Questions asked and answered in this episode include: Is The Fifth Element a noir? Who would we cast in a gender-swapped The Fifth Element? Is Ruby Rhod a queer icon? Is Bruce Willis a hot dad? Could The Fifth Element be made today? Is it weird and cool th...