It’s a Magicka world

While the current economic climate is a blight for many, one former Douglas engineer has embraced the downturn.

Colin O’Donovan, whose two-part radio play, Magicka, airs today, Friday and on February 17th at 11am on Xtra Reel on UCC 98.3FM, explains that if work in his industry had not dried up, he would not have enrolled in St John’s College to follow his true passion. “After 10 years in engineering, the downturn gave me time to take a collective breath,” says the second year student. “I love engaging people, and capturing hearts and imagination through film, music… everything, really.”

Inspired by Under Milk Wood, a radio play by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, which starred actor Richard Burton, O’Donovan took a similar concept for his piece, hoping to capture the imaginations of Cork listeners. Starring American actor and comedian, Ashley Strand, as well as Fiona Lucia McGarry and O’Donovan himself, Magicka is an escape into a magical world of Satanists, love spells, devils, cockney demons and gay angels, and an aristocratic narrator.

The radio play tells the tale of the Devil’s accidental summoning to Earth by a renegade band of Satanists. On attending a forest party, the Devil falls in love with Gwendaline, who has cast a love spell to find a dream-lover. “Gwendaline is actually a character I developed who is like my ex-girlfriend, and I’m the Devil in it,” laughs O’Donovan.

“Radio is such an under exploited medium. It’s great to have an opportunity to write something for people to just sit back and relax to, while being transported away to another world,” he says.