Month: April 2004

Blues on the Bay Festival

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Warrenpoint has suddenly become our cultural Mecca!  No sooner are we over the huge triumph of the All-Ireland Amateur Drama Finals [Confined] that we are pitched straight into the Blues on the Bay Festival!

Now I’ve made it clear before that I consider this Festival to be the highlight of the cultural year and the best event that Newry & Mourne Council ever sponsored.  The chief sponsor is of course Guinness and I can personally recommend a pint or two of cold flow from any of the ten venues.  These are

Balmoral  Jack Ryans  Square Peg  Bennetts  Duke
Shenahigans  First & Last  Foresters  Victoria  Finns

As always the talented and experienced organisers have lined up an array of guests to beat the band!  I will immediately admit to total ignorance on the specialist subject of The Blues, but they have even laid on Workshops [History of The Blues; Blues Guitar Techniques; Percussion] for all abilities, with spectators very welcome.

Journal will try to acquire the services of a specialist critic to review a number of the showcase events and artists/groups.  I know that my wife and I, and our extended party will finish anyway in Bennetts on Saturday 29 May with Rev Doc and the Congregation.  Kieran and his troupe have become friends as well as favourites over the years and Bennetts is our favourite venue.

Closer to the time I will advise you more about the upcoming events.  The Brochure is available now from all local Tourist offices.  Don’t miss it! 

Point Drama Festival Results

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Warrenpoint Confined [All-Ireland] Finals is just over.  It had a worthy winner in Silken Thomas Players’ ‘Bent’.  Runners-up were Stolen Child, also excellent.  Third was Tyrone’s Backburners Players with ‘Thy Will Be Done’.   I cannot understand Michael Twomey placing ‘HRT’ fourth as tonight’s play, and this production was the weakest of the nine entries.  Still we had 1st, 2nd and 3rd in common so he wasn’t that far away from my own view.

The Festival was a triumph for all concerned and I personally salute each and every one involved in its organisation and delivery.  A veritable feast of drama.  I’m tempted to travel as far as Athlone for the All-Ireland Open Finals, which has already begun.  Newpoint are on next Saturday night. 

Tonight’s Ulster Finals saw Newpoint’s ‘Portia Coughlan’ come second.  But here’s the rub!  It won Best Producer [Sean Treanor], Best Actress [Patricia McCoy] and Best Moment of Theatre.  I don’t ever remember a ‘Best Producer’ that didn’t also win Best Production.  I’m not sure there isn’t an inbuilt contradiction in this situation.  And Newpoint had already beaten Clarence [Belfast: Translations] twice on the circuit.

If they go on to win the All-Ireland next week, this will become evident.  My best wishes and congratulations to my friends Sean and Patricia and all the rest of the worthy Newpoint cast.

All the groups were effusive in their praise of their reception in Warrenpoint and Newry & Mourne.  I hope some will consider a holiday among us.  They will be made just as welcome as tourists as they were as entertainers.

Warrenpoint All-Ireland Confined

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I’ve seen before just three of the nine dramas to be staged on consecutive nights [8 p.m. nightly from Fri 23 April to Sat 1 May] in Warrenpoint Town Hall in the 52nd [same number as Newry Drama Festival celebrated this year!] All-Ireland Confined Drama Finals.  All three are great entertainment – Newpoint’s very first triumph ‘Our Town’ by Thornton Wilder[Wed 28]: Bernard Farrell’s ‘Kevin’s Bed’ [Fri 23] (I saw this at Lislea last year) and the fantastic Marie Jones’ ‘Women on the Verge of HRT’ on the final night.  The latter is sure to be a sell-out.

In addition, we are to be entertained to ‘Bent’ by Martin Sherman [24 Apr], ‘Eclipsed’ by Patricia Brogan [Sun 25] [the play that recently eclipsed the home team at Lislea – see story here], ‘Stolen Child’ by Yvonne Quinn [26 Apr], ‘Cash on Delivery’ by Michael Cooney [Tues 27], ‘The cripple of Innismann’ by Martin McDonagh [Thurs 29] and ‘Thy Will Be Done’ by Michael Carey on the penultimate night.

Amazingly the Silken Thomas Players, Kildare are presenting TWO full length plays here [Bent and HRT].  I’ve no idea how but it’s a story worth learning!  I’ll do my best for you! Wexford is represented by two groups [Ballycogley, Kevin’s Bed and Bridge Drama Society, Innismann].  Phoenix, Sligo are doing Our Town:  Creggan, Tyrone, as previously recorded here, are giving us Eclipsed:  Another Tyrone outfit, Backburners are presenting the Carey play:  Bridgeview, Waterford are giving us Cash on Delivery:  and Skibbereen are giving us Stolen Child.  A hearty welcome, congratulations and thanks to each and every team in advance.  We are honoured by your presence among us!

The Plots? 

Friday, Kevin’s Bed:  Kitchen of a house in West of Ireland today and 25 years ago, Doris and Dan’s Golden and Silver Wedding Anniversaries.  They try to come to terms with their sons’ [Kevin and John] hapless lives.

Saturday, Bent:  1930’s Nazi Germany:  Max and Rudy, his homosexual flatmate begin a nightmare odyssey across Germany.  Max refuses to abandon Rudy and they are soon caught.  En route to Dachau Rudy is killed and Horst, another homosexual prisoner warns Max to deny Rudy which he does.  Max opts for the label Jew rather than Queer, but through Horst he is forced to reveal the truth.

Sunday, Eclipsed.  With a present-day prologue and epilogue, the play is set in a convent laundry in 1963 showing how the ‘penitent’ girls cope with the life that society has condemned them to.  Topical!

Monday, Stolen Child:  humorous and moving.  An adopted woman investigates her origins.  Like the above, it soon becomes a fascinating exploration of a dark chapter in recent Irish history.

Tuesday, Cash on Delivery:  About a social welfare swindler who gets caught – hilarious!

Wednesday, Our Town:  Early 20th century Grover’s Corner, NH, USA is gradually revealed through its inhabitants.

Thursday, Cripple of Innismann:  Billy the cripple of Innismann [1934] lives with his foster aunt and gets the unexpected chance to star in a film ‘Man of Aran’.  Will he make it to Hollywood?

Friday, Thy Will Be Done:  Brothers in rural Ireland, living together, haven’t spoken to each other for 40 years.  Bridie the home-help, with a little divine help, resolves the dilemma.

Saturday, Women on verge of HRT:  Dublin women in Donegal, faithless men – ah, just go and see it yourself!!!

Fews Glossary G

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StreetPump.jpg

Gab talk, mouth, ‘he’d deeve ye with his gab’ ‘I’ll swing me han’ across yer gab’
Gabble talk quickly
Gainsome winning
Gait way of going/walking, ‘I’ll alter his gait before I’m through’
Gag joke. ‘you’re a quare gag!’, you are quite the joker
Gale torrent, a gale of words
Galoot  fool
Gallusues trouser braces
Galore abundance, food galore
Gam  fool
Gant  yawn
Gash  gap, ‘The cow made a gash in the hedge’
Gassoon boy
Gather to supperate
Gather collect, as in crowd, also a collection of money, harvest apples, also ‘he gathered himself up and pulled himself together’
Get  a child born out of wedlock
Girl  servant
Girsshe girl
Girn  grin, make screeching noise
Give  threatening verb as in ‘I’ll give it to ye, me boy’
Give in acknowledge, ‘I give in that you’re right’
Giving off scolding, ‘she’s forever giving off’
Gizzard heart, ‘there’s devil a hate o’ feeling in the gizzard of that one’
Glam  snatch
Glower stare
Glut  too much, a glut of rain, a glut of fruit
Go  a quantity, a go of water
Go-between intermediary
Go-by  dismissal, to pass over
Goings-on tricks, happenings
Gomeril fool
Gophen the full of two hands of anything
Grate  disturb
Great  friendly, ‘them two’s great again’
Greatly-shaken unfit, looking ill
No great shakes of little consequence
Greesha ashes of wood or turf
Griskin boiling meat
Grist  gist account ‘that’s the true grist of the story’
Grisset cam
Groun-stone grindstone
Grub  food, dirty, delve or toil:
Head full o’ grubs silly, fanciful
Gruellin’ beating
Gub  mouth, ‘close yer gub’ – be quiet!
Gulch  small, fat ‘a wee gulch of a body’
Gulder roar, ‘he gave a gulder out of him’
Gumption sense
Gunk  disappoint, confuse, astonish ‘he was really gunked!’

Tinderbox’s Revenge

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Tinderbox is the only local drama touring company ever to bother to grace us with their presence and by virtue of that alone, deserves our support.  I am confident that this new play by Michael Duke, ‘Revenge’ is worth seeing.  I suppose it is unfortunate that Newry Town Hall is booked at the moment for the Feis, causing this drama to be staged instead in the less-suitable Warrenpoint Town Hall [the same reason that the All-Ireland Confined Amateur Drama Finals also went to Warrenpoint]. 

{Yes I know the Feis is popular, long-running etc. but it’s also eminently suited to Warrenpoint Town Hall, as these others are not!  Also schoolchildren and parents would relish the trip to ‘The Point’ and so their participation – and the all-important memory of the occasion – would actually be enhanced! }

Why the problem?  Well, Revenge is an epic story of love and loss, played out on a spectacular scale.  A bold, theatrically vivid production, it is performed by a fourteen-strong professional cast alongside community choruses.  See the professionals this Monday night and the amateurs all next week.  A crash course in learning to be a theatre critic!

The story?  It’s Halloween night when the worlds of the living and the dead meet.  And it’s the last night for one young couple before their long-awaited wedding.  Even as they stand on the threshold of this new life together, the shadows of absent friends return to engulf them.  Before the night is over, there are vows of remembrance and vengeance that must finally be settled.

The tour is presented with support from the Victims Strategy Implementation Fund, a venture itself worthy of support.  I know I’m asking a lot recently even of drama enthusiasts like myself, but it’s a long time till this time next year – when such choice comes round again.  Give it a birl!

Monday 19 April – One Night Only – 8 p.m. Warrenpoint Town Hall

Happy to report [Mon night] that Revenge was well-attended and well-played.  Local girl Gemma Burns, as Mae, on her first professional appearance excelled.

The play itself is dark, psychological and disturbing.  Not, in my opinion, to be recommended for ‘victims’ – the group it especially portrays.