Crossing the line

For Donna Legge and David ‘Rigsy’ O’Reilly, life is about to change ever so slightly. They are preparing to make the move from the comparative anonymity of radio to the public glare of television as they launch the eagerly expected Across The Line:TV on BBC2. So, are they ready to become the faces behind the voices?

“People keep asking me if I’m nervous about it”, says Rigsy “but I’m not really. It’s nothing strange for me; I don’t have to bullshit or say anything that I don’t believe in. I just have to go on and talk about music and that’s how I’ve looked at my job for the last two and a half years and it seems to have done me well. I’m not really intimidated at the moment”.
Donna laughs. “I’ve been out today and I’ve seen a couple of people do a double take because the trailer’s been on. I love my job but I’ve never hankered after any sort of fame whatsoever. That might take a bit of getting used to.”
ALT:TV looks set to be small screen heaven for those of us starved of a decent music programme. But the radio show remains their long-term focus.
“It’s a chance for us to show people what goes on on the radio. We’re using it as a marketing tool for the radio show more than anything else,” Donna insists. “There are a lot of ideas that we haven’t been able to pull off and we’re suddenly getting the visual element. We’re having to reign ourselves in a little bit, but if we get another series they won’t know what they’re getting”.
“It’s very very similar”, agrees Rigsy. “Myself and Donna keep it really casual. There are no scripts for the TV show, no plan; we’ll just record our bits until we get them right. The only distinction on the radio is we don’t get a second chance. The thing that is different is that we’re a wee bit more aware of our audience with the television show. The radio version is very alternative sometimes and we’re very proud of that, although sometimes we might have the odd bigger band on that we’re not so crazy about, but we play a lot of obscure stuff. On the TV, we’ve been told to go for the figures which means getting the bigger guns in. This is our first series and we’ve only got six shows, so we’ve got to get viewers first – not that we’re sacrificing our credibility”.
The format sounds perfect, a mix of passion and irreverence, and major bands rubbing shoulders with their smaller, local counterparts. Each show will see an unsigned band given the chance to make a video with a different director, something that should help to sidestep the rather dreary succession of lo-fi offerings that tended to blight the departed No Disco.
Donna, for one, is very aware of this. “There are no outlets, apart for maybe websites, for unsigned bands to get their videos shown. Most don’t even get the chance to make one. We had a list of twelve or thirteen bands that we could have gone for, but we had to pare it right down. We didn’t want it to be too Belfast-centric or all rock bands or all blokes. We’ve got a good mix in there and we’re just really glad to show people some of the great bands that are out there”.
Another key thing about ALT:TV is that, given the widespread propensity for digital and cable television, it will effectively become the successor to No Disco as the only national music magazine programme. Rigsy picks up the thread.
“That’s something we’re really aware of”, he says. “Across The Line has always been Irish, we don’t prioritise bands from the North ahead of those from the South, we never have. The only thing is that bands from the North are more likely to send us their stuff. On this series, the two bands who spring to mind are Hal and The Chalets, both of whom we playlisted on the radio. I hope that people will take it as a show for the whole of Ireland”.
Yet, despite the fact that they’re only a couple of hours apart, Dublin and Belfast seem to not only have distinctly different musical scenes but surprisingly little movement between them and an equally sketchy knowledge of each other.
“Whenever we think of the Southern Irish scene”, says Donna “we think of the singer songwriters or bands like the Frames and Turn. Up here, I think there’s a slight edginess to it, you never know what we’re going to do next, as a city or in bands. There’s no definable scene, everyone’s making different types of music. It’s really vibrant. There is a definite feeling that if a band from here goes and plays in Dublin, then it’s an event. A lot of them would go and play in Scotland quicker than there. I think its knowing the promoters and how to get gigs.”
She pauses, thinking of a tactful way of phrasing her next point, then gives up. “Also, there are a lot of bands coming out of the South and a lot of people up here are going, ‘why do people like them?’”.
We leave the last words on ALT:TV to a clearly excited Rigsy: “There isn’t really an alternative show anywhere, certainly not like this. I’ve been told that there hasn’t been a programme where the presenters have had so much to do with it from the start. We’ve steered virtually everything”.

ALT:TV began screening on BBC2 Northern Ireland on Tuesdays at 10pm from May 4. The series will last six weeks. Across The Line can be heard on BBC Radio Ulster on weekdays at 8pm