This wonderful story from renowned queer seanchaí (Irish oral storyteller) and academic Joseph de-Lappe is called The Man on the TV. It interweaves memories of growing up queer in rural Ireland, of living through other epidemics, in particular HIV/AIDS in 1980s, and how Covid triggers his father’s memories of living through polio in 1950s. He touchingly recalls his parents’ home where TV was centre stage and chat shows wired his mother to the wider world. Leaving his home and Ireland and migrating to the UK, Joe’s story makes a deft and intricate play on the changing faces of the man on the TV seen from the point of view of his mother – from his childhood to today where his mother sees his face via a webcam he installed to reconnect himself daily to home life during covid and especially his mother whose dementia has worsened recently.
