New Philip Lynott documentary (2012)

As part of their 50 year celebrations RTE has commissioned a new documentary on Phil Lynott from producer/director Dave Heffernan. Titled ‘The Philip Lynott Archive’ the one hour documentary includes rare footage of Thin Lizzy as well as the first screening of a fully restored version of the promo for the 1982 single ‘Old Town‘. The documentary features interviews with John Kelly, Dave Fanning. Jim Lockhart, Eamon Carr, Jim Fitzpatrick, Brian Downey, Philomena Lynott, Dave Geraghty (Bell X1), Thomas Walsh (Pugwash), Declan O’Rourke, Stuart Clark (Hot Press) and director of the ‘Old Town’ video Gerry Gregg. Tony Clayton Lea speaks of this very video in his recent book ‘101 Irish Records You Must Hear Before You Die‘:

“You could argue that Gregg’s video did more to raise the song’s profile and to generate emotional warmth for the singer than any amount of radio play at the time”

The documentary airs on Monday Jan 2nd 2012 at 10.55pm on RTE1. RTE promises to publish further footage from their 50 year archives on their website throughout the year, follow @RTETV50 on twitter for updates. Update: The show can now be viewed on the RTE player here. Overseas viewers check out the new RTE player for the iPhone/iPad/iPod which I believe does not have any regional restrictions.