The chaos of late 2008 is recreated in this two-part drama adapted by Colin Murphy from his own play. Declan Conlon plays Brian Lenihan, and Denis Conway is Brian Cowen, two men caught in the crosshairs of one of the biggest political crises in the history of the State. As Cowen, Bertie Ahern's sometimes taciturn chosen successor, and Lenihan, a talented politician who'd been sidelined by Ahern, struggle with the sheer scale of the problem that confronts them, The Bailout leaves us in no doubt that the two men are merely pawns in a larger international game.
The drama begins with that fateful government guarantee, then takes us on a whirlwind tour of the corridors of power in Dublin and Brussels to the IMF, ECB, the US Treasury Department and back. Screened to mark the tenth anniversary of the bank bailout, it should shed some insight on a moment in Irish history that's still clouded by official obfuscation and intrigue.
