Opening night at Room to Move‘s new production of Hugh Leonard’s ‘Love in the Title’ proved to be very entertaining. I’ll admit straightoff, more often than not I’m a little frustrated when I hear there’s going to be an interval. I’m not a massive fan of long plays, I usually find that a lot could have been edited out and I prefer theatre to be short and sweet.

So I was a little worried when they announced there would be an interval half way through, but the two hours flew. A typical Irish play, ‘Love in the Title’ sees stories from three generations of women relayed through conversation in a strange, otherworld setting. Oddly, the eldest of the women is embodied in younger format and vice versa with roles reversed, thus reinforcing the unnatural setting in which the women find themselves.

This unnatural setting seems to force the women into discussing aspects of their lives, which they have buried deep beneath the everyday functions of a family. The play is a very entertaining series of stories and discussions with two of the characters experiencing important epiphanies; coming to new realisations about their life.

The acting is extremely good and what I especially love is the nice clean stage, leaving lots of room for the stories to unfurl. I was especially glad to see Tanya Wilson making an appearance, having been a fan of one of her previous play – The Company’s ‘As you are now so once were we’.  Melissa Nolan, while a wonderful actress, seemed a little too young for the character she played and I found it difficult to appreciate the age difference between her character and Wilson’s.

The play is beautifully written but I found, perhaps gets a little frustrating when Katie, the granddaughter of the group of women, doesn’t undergo the same epiphany the other characters do. She seems to know too much and not learn anything from the experience, while the other two characters – Cat and Triona come to new understandings of aspects of their lives, past and present.

A production to be recommended, ‘Love in the Title’ is a highly entertaining study of the misunderstandings between generations, the everlasting connection between family, and the female bond between these three characters.

Playing until June 2nd, tickets just €15 (€12 with concession). More info here >>

This time round I went because a friend knew a guy in the play. Situations like that never really make you hope for much, but said play is on in Smock Alley, which in my humble opinion is probably the most beautiful theatre in Dublin and this is my fourth play in there and it has yet to let me down.

Written by Eoghan Quinn, who also acts in the play and is by all appearances, only a young ‘un; MONSTER/CLOCK is by its own declaration a play on time. I am subject to exaggeration sometimes, but this play is honestly one of the most creative pieces of theatre I’ve seen in a while.

It involves puppets, and I’ll be honest with you in the first 20 minutes I wasn’t entirely convinced by them – they’re hand puppets so there’s a large human behind them who also voices them. After the initial hesitation though I quickly got into the spirit of things and those little fluffy characters were as real to me as the household charge.

The story is a real beauty – it’s an imaginative tale of a boy who is seen as a monster in a world of puppets. This boy is a particularly talented horologist (yes I did think of that particularly geeky little boy on the Toy Show two years ago). When he’s faced with the challenge of solving a final challenge so he can save his mentor (a koala, sure you’d have to save the little guy), he has to embark on a journey well outside his comfort zone, travelling to far off lands and meeting lots of colourful characters along the way.

The creativity and imagination in putting together this piece of theatre is astounding. It’s a gorgeously fun way to spend an hour and a half and I would highly highly recommend it. There were little ones at the show with us and they seemed to enjoy it as much as the adults.

Extra performances have been added due to popular demand so you have up until April 14th to catch this show. Visit Smock Alley website for more info – tickets start from €12.

A collection of 15 beautifully constructed short stories; Dubliners dips gently into the lives of a host of characters living in Dublin city around the beginning of the twentieth century. Even though Joyce wrote most of his work whilst living outside of Ireland, Dublin is perhaps one of his biggest and most influential characters in his work. Which is why it is a mecca for lovers of Joyce’s work, who come every year to explore the city that inspired one of the world’s greatest writers.

All this has led theatre producer Alice Coughlan to down her theatre tools and assemble quite a large cast of inspirationally-voiced actors, whom she recorded reading various selections of text from a number of different stories in Dubliners. What results is a tiny little mp3 player, which holds some beautiful recordings of these fabulous stories. However, Wonderland Productions’ Dubliners Walking Experience is not just about the recordings, it involves a map and the city of Dublin also. Slipping on your headphones and heading out onto these historical streets, you are immersed deep into each story.

To really make the experience effective, Coughlan has reworded and restructured some of the work to include more dialogue in each story, so that the characters can tell their stories more than the narratorial voice originally in the story. Two Gallants in particular is very striking, walking down Rutland Square (known to today’s Dubliner as Parnell Square East), we earwig on Lenehan and Corley discussing the generosity Corley has managed to receive from a certain lady friend.

The highlight for me was The Dead - the most striking story in the collection, it has its home in Usher’s Island and also The Gresham. While The Gresham piece wasn’t as poignant as it could have been due to the ridiculous amount of Dublin buses crawling by, the house on Usher’s Island was particularly special. Entering the house, you sit and listen to Lily the Caretaker being literally rushed off her feet and Gabriel making his entrance, peeling off his galoshes. Climbing up the stairs, we enter the drawing room and hear the wonderful music and conversation. We find the dining room is set for dinner and take our place at the table to listen to the dinner conversation. Arriving back downstairs, we gaze up the stairs as The Lass of Aughrim floats through the air – if there was anything that ironically could bring The Dead to life, it was this moment.

Various other stories are mapped out, with stops scattered across the city – the Church on Meath Street, Temple Bar, Ely Place, St. Stephen’s Green – they’re all packed in there in a half day tour that took us near on five hours to complete. There’s a full day tour available also which takes you out to Chapelizod as well as the city centre. The tour was extremely impressive, not just by how well the extracts have been delicately reworked in parts, and carefully recorded, but also by how well they bring the stories to life when listened to on site. It may perhaps be a bit too long for someone who isn’t entirely head over heels in love with Joyce, perhaps a shortened version taking about two hours long would be a more attractive activity, but for anyone who loves Joyce and would like to experience his work being really and truly brought to life, then it’s a must.

Visit the Wonderland Productions website for more information.

Tours take place every day, beginning at the Dublin Writer’s Museum, Parnell Square, with tickets starting from €10.

This Wednesday, if you’re not too busy sitting in watching endless episodes of Criminal Minds (hey, not judging, that’s what I usually do on Wednesday nights), you can meet some of Ireland’s newest, freshest and fiercest literary talent. Yup, Literary Death Match returns to Dubland. Kicking off from 8.15 at The Workman’s Club, it promises to be a fun night.

Meet the judges – Clare Cullen, Colm O’Regan and John Butler. These guys’ll be casting their votes on the following up and coming literary voices:

Kalle Ryan – of BrownBreadMixtape fame.

Sean Mahoney – stalk him up here.

Deirdre Sullivan, you’ll find her at gunstreetgirls.blogspot.com, which interestingly has an ‘adult content warning’ type thing when you visit the site – what a first impression!

Abby Oliviera – a Scottish – Irish poet.

Anyways, these four writers will duel, performing their own literary work and providing endless amounts of entertainment. The last and only other time I’ve been to a Literary Death Match, I was highly entertained and delighted to find that someone had thought up of such a unique idea and presented it in such an enthusiastic manner. Well done to Todd Zuniga for creating such an imaginative and fun night out that’s a great balance between super-geeky and irresistibly cool.

The deets:

It’s €7 if you pre-order your tickets here, but if you’re not that organised, it’s €10 on the door. Drinkies after!

Still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Turn off U2 and click here.

January 1st, 2012 – today Joyce’s published works come out of copyright in Europe, which is exciting times for Joyceans. Now hopefully artists and writers will have the freedom to use Joyce’s work to create their own art – for example, Joyce’s play ‘Exiles’ can now be produced without the restrictions or preventions of the notoriously strict Joyce estate. Stage and screen adaptations of Joyce’s work can now be freely produced. And I can copy and paste entire sections of Joyce’s work and publish them on my blog worry free – happy days.

I can’t quite explain why this is my favourite passage from Ulysses, I think it’s the humour and perhaps the lovely turn of phrase, but this always stands out for me whenever I think of Joyce’s blue book of Eccles. It’s a conversation between some men in Barney Kiernan’s pub, just general chit chat, but when they start speaking of a certain Paddy Dignam, confusion ensues:

“So I saw there was going to be bit of a dust. Bob’s a queer chap when the porter’s up in him so says I just to make talk:

– How’s Willy Murray those times, Alf?

– I don’t know, says Alf. I saw him just now in Capel Street with Paddy Dignam. Only I was running after that.

– You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who?

– With Dignam, says Alf.

– Is it Paddy? says Joe.

– Yes, says Alf. Why?

– Don’t you know he’s dead? says Joe.

– Paddy Dignam dead? says Alf.

– Ay, says Joe.

– Sure I’m after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as a pikestaff.

– Who’s dead? says Bob Doran.

– You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm.

– What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five… What?… and Willie Murray with him, the two of them there near what-doyoucallhim’s… What? Dignam dead?

– What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who’s talking about… ?

– Dead! says Alf. He is no more dead than you are.

– Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow.

– Paddy? says Alf.

– Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him.

– Good Christ! says Alf.

Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted.”

Happy New Year!

In saying that though, I would still heartily recommend going to see B for Baby at the Peacock. It’s a really gorgeous play, with fantastic performances from both actors, a great set and the writing is just fabulous. I’ve put the trailer in below, the play runs until November 19th – clickedy click for tickets!

ANYWAYS, you can find out more about Literary Death Match here. It starts at 8.30pm in The Workman’s Club on Thursday, Nov. 3rd, and judging by my experience at the last match I definitely recommend it. Unfortunately I have a friend, who is doing a ‘thing’ at the ICAD Upstarts on Thursday night, so it’s ‘mates before literary death match dates’ I’m afraid.

Following on from this success, Peer Gynt, in a new version by Arthur Riordan, transports the Norweigan tale from the cold environs of late 1800′s Scandinavia to modern Ireland, and this is all done with a great set, and lively performances accompanied by really gorgeous live music by Tarab.

Lasting three hours, the first half of the play was fast paced, full of cheeky humour and lively performances, particularly from Karen Ardiff’s Aase. Closing the first half with a moving scene between mother and son, the relevance of Peer Gynt for an Irish audience became very clear – Irish mothers and their undying love for their sons!

The second half changed in tone, as Rory Nolan’s Peer travels abroad and encounters many strange characters, who ultimately lead him to tackle the question of when he has been himself. While I loved the first half, the second half lost my interest quite a bit – I understand that the plot of Peer Gynt is quite convoluted (in fact the play was originally written to be read and not staged), so it’s not the production’s fault, but the second half is really a let down when compared with the first.

However, the closing scenes were particularly stunning, and I left the theatre feeling like I had experienced something quite special. In my own opinion, the production is extremely creative, Arthur Riordan has done a great job of creating a text that is as relevant as it was to an audience in the late 1800′s, as it is to an audience in Ireland today; the music as I’ve already harped on about (pardon the pun) is absolutely fantastic, and the set design was brilliant.

I think that Rough Magic combining live music with theatre has yet again nailed it when it comes to great theatre. Unfortunately, an overly complicated plot let them down slightly, but the production is still something not to be missed.

Peer Gynt is on until October 16th and tickets can be bought on the Ulster Bank Theatre Festival’s box office.

Anyways, after missing Literary Death Match in June, I made sure to attend the next installment. Held, in the Workman’s Club, the match was less of the geeky and more of the giggles and silliness.

Hosted with much clever humour and lots of aforementioned silliness, by Todd Zuniga, the death match involves three judges – Trevor Byrne, Cathy Davey and Jarleth Regan this time round, and four relatively unheard of, yet very talented, writers – Sarah Maria Griffin, Simon Ashe-Browne, Philip O’Connor and Noel Sweeney. Oddly enough the two poets of the group – Griffin and Sweeney were not pitted against each other – and were instead arranged to contend with two prose writers – Ashe-Browne and O’Connor. This arrangement was left to a bizarre method of throwing pieces of paper bearing each writers names into the audience and letting the audience shout up the names they had caught.

The battles themselves involved each writer reading/performing their work, and then handing over to the judges to decide who should go through to the final. It seems a little unfair to think that writers should be judged on their performance, but actually the judges were very careful not to put too much weight on their performance and did instead judge on their work.

The night was full of laughs and general silliness, including a battle to the death between the two finalists – Griffin and Ashe-Brown, which involved scrunched up paper and a basketball ring.

Griffin did emerge triumphant in the end, and I think that from the get-go the entire audience was behind her. Her performance was very captivating, but her poetry (and I don’t even like poetry that much) was fantastic: funny, quirky and giving great observations on the trials of love. See for yourself.

In all, I’m looking forward to the next death match, whenever that is. I giggled my way through the night and got to experience new writers with fresh material and engaging performances. Clickedy click to see when the next event is on.