The Dock has been popping up in all sorts of unexpected places this week…

As well as our appearance on the UTV news website (which, I’ve just been informed, was the number-one story on Monday), we also appeared in the Irish News and the Belfast Tele:

That pales into insignificance compared to the majesty of our guest slots on TV screens across the nation on Monday night…  Have you been watching The Fall, the addictive Belfast-based thriller series starring Gillian Anderson?  Have you occasionally been momentarily distracted from the plot by being able to play ‘Spot The Belfast Landmark’?  Can you therefore imagine my joy when a whole scene took place with Dock Cafe standing proudly in the background?

At the risk of giving away the whole story, the plot goes like this.  Car rolls up – with Dock Cafe in the background!  Blonde Scully and Man With Beard get out and chat – with Dock Cafe in the background! Man With Beard talks to Other Man With Beard – with Dock Cafe in the background!  Then there’s lots of stuff about a killer on the loose.

(Don’t read the next paragraph if you haven’t caught up with Series 3 of Game Of thrones yet!)

The other big TV event this week has been the shocking penultimate episode of Series 3 of Game Of Thrones – which managed to polish off a significant proportion of the lead characters in true Game Of Thrones style – shocking, violent, breathtakingly good TV.

What you may not realise is that there’s a Dock link to that game-changing, controversial scene at the end of the episode: Walder Frey’s wife, held hostage by Caitlyn Stark before everything goes a bit blood-splattered for everyone concerned, is played by Kelly – who played the slightly more upbeat role of ‘Girl In Cafe’ in the Robb Murphy music video filmed here a few weeks back:

Congrats to Kelly who kept the monumental plot twists secret from all of us Throne-addicts who were digging for secrets during the shoot!

It may seem a bit weird to be celebrating two very tangential appearances by The Dock on TV, given that we’ve had our very own prime-time UTV Dockumentry – but there’s an extra buzz in the familiar unexpectedly popping up on your TV screen – twice in one night!  And isn’t it worth celebrating that some of the absolute best TV out there anywhere in the world at the minute is being filmed in Belfast?

It makes me very proud to think that the most riveting BBC drama in years, and the most spectacular TV fantasy series of all time, are both filmed within a stone’s throw of Dock Cafe.