{"id":637995,"date":"2026-09-27T23:34:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/637995\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T23:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:34:22","slug":"what-you-need-to-know-about-tall-tales-murder-%c2%b7-thejournal-ie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/637995\/","title":{"rendered":"What you need to know about Tall Tales & Murder \u00b7 TheJournal.ie"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOOKING FOR A juicy new series with a bizarre crime at its centre, and some of Irish screen royalty starring in it?<\/p>\n

Then you\u2019ll definitely want to watch Tall Tales & Murder.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about the new series, which begins airing this Sunday night on RT\u00c9 One.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the background to it?<\/p>\n

\"Tall-Tales-Murder-Ella-Lily-Hyland-3-1536x1025\"
\n Ella Lily Hyland Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9<\/p>\n

Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9 \/ RT\u00c9\n<\/p>\n

Tall Tales & Murder is a new series based on novels by the Irish author Caimh McDonnell.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been adapted by Stuart Carolan, who was the creator of the mega-hit Love\/Hate, alongside Chris Addison, who you\u2019ll know from his work on The Thick of It and The Loop. Addison directs some of the episodes, as does the Irish Bafta Award-winning director Neasa Hardiman. So there\u2019s a fine team behind it.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the plot?<\/p>\n

\"Tall-Tales-Murder-Ella-Lily-Hyland-.-Photo-credit-Mark-Sheen--1536x1025\"
\n Ella Lily Hyland Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9<\/p>\n

Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9 \/ RT\u00c9\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about a quirky nursing home where one of the patients \u2013 played by Aidan Gillen \u2013 is known as \u2018Anonymous\u2019. He\u2019s been in a coma for quite a few years. He\u2019s also covered in some mysterious tattoos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among those caring for Anonymous and the other patients at the nursing home is young nurse Bridget, who\u2019s described as \u201cunconventional\u201d. She works the nightshift and has some unusual tricks for entertaining the patients, including reading them horror stories. But even though she doesn\u2019t particularly like her job, she has a lot of empathy for her patients.<\/p>\n

Into the home walks Paul, an ex-con who is trying to repay a debt to the crime boss Ma Baker. Paul is played by newcomer Casey Walsh, while Ma Baker is played by Philippa Dunne (Motherland). After an incident involving a car chase and police pursuit, Paul turns to a detective called Bunny Ryan to keep him out of trouble by getting him a job at the nursing home.<\/p>\n

And what do you know? He gets the job, and gets put on the nightshift.<\/p>\n

And when Bridget and Paul work their first shift together, Anonymous wakes up\u2026 and reveals he\u2019s a long-lost gangster.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but he holds the key to the location of a buried hoard of Celtic gold. This is just the sort of thing that Bridget and Paul want to hear, so they set off on a dangerous journey to recover it.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the vibe here?<\/p>\n

\"Tall-Tales-Murder-Casey-Walsh\"
\n Casey Walsh Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9<\/p>\n

Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9 \/ RT\u00c9\n<\/p>\n

This is a crime series that\u2019s crammed with moments of off-kilter humour. It\u2019s great to see some actors play against type \u2013 you wouldn\u2019t typically think of Philippa Dunne in a role as a dangerous gang leader, but she\u2019s very funny here.<\/p>\n

Ella Lily Hyland is another hoot, using her Carlow accent to dry aplomb, and deploying many curse words throughout the show (if you\u2019re sensitive to the c-word \u2013 no, not Carlow \u2013 be warned). She\u2019s great as a woman who desperately wants to escape her circumstances, and will do anything to change them.<\/p>\n

Newcomer Casey Walsh is a fine screen presence too, as a young lad who\u2019s always getting himself into scrapes and is mainly skilled at standing in his own way.<\/p>\n

Stuart Carolan is best known for Love\/Hate, and you can see why he wanted to adapt this. It\u2019s got the gangland vibe but brings it to a lighter, more chaotic and bizarre level. There\u2019s also a streak of Celtic folklore running through the show, which is a little different to his previous work.<\/p>\n

This is a show about people trying to make their lives better, but making some pretty bad decisions as they do it. And for the rest of us, that\u2019s very enjoyable to watch.<\/p>\n

When can we watch it?<\/p>\n

\"Tall-Tales-Murder-Casey-Walsh\"
\n Casey Walsh Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9<\/p>\n

Mark Sheen \/ RT\u00c9 \/ RT\u00c9\n<\/p>\n

Tall Tales & Murder begins airing on RT\u00c9 One this Sunday (27 September) at 9.40pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOOKING FOR A juicy new series with a bizarre crime at its centre, and some of Irish screen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[163478,93,61,60,191643],"class_list":["post-637995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-best-of-the-box","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-watercooler-moment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}