We're Back! and then we're off again.

Well, all things considered, that wasn't too bad: the guts of a thousand miles there and back, the heart-stopping lane-jumping of six squillion motor vehicles, the charming young lady, inches from our bumper in her Ford Ka, her middle finger proudly displayed ... Not too bad at all. We highly recommend Stafford Services, somewhere off the M6. But we cannot say the same for Stratford on Avon, which we made a detour to on the way back. Don't bother. Read the plays. Or go to them. Or learn them all off. Backwards. But don't go to Stratford.

Brighton, they said, was just like Galway. On steroids, they forgot to add. It does have the sea air. But more than a prom...it has a pier. Such a pier! Seagulls patrol like a private security firm. They take payment in chips. Or your finger. We bought ice-cream. We nearly won a cuddly toy.

And we did a play. The first show had a bone chilling audience - not a titter, not a chuckle. But neither did they squirm or yawn. THEY JUST SAT THERE!! Was this what English audiences did? we wondered. The post(show)mortem went on for hours. If audiences ever knew they are the watched as much as the watchers...But for the three remaining evenings the audiences were much warmer. We put the first show chilliness down to the presence of five reviewers, who had surely spread their malign influence through the crowd!

The two shows of note that we saw (we tried to get into dreamthinkspeak's Before I Sleep, but no luck) were Nobody's Home by Theatre Temoin and the moment i saw you i knew i could love you by Curious. That, of course, is the other reason to get to festivals, to see shows you wouldn't otherwise, to be influenced, to be provoked into thought, to be challenged.

We're off to Kerry for the Listowel Writers' Week on the 3rd June. Then, on the 7th June, we're travelling up the road to Limerick, for evening shows in the Loft at the Locke Bar until the 13th June.

Husbands, Hats and Grants

'Husbands and Hats - A Revival of Two Classic Plays' went on at Lunchtime Theatre @ Kelly's Bar from the 19th to the 21st April, followed by a speedy reprise the following week at Lunchtime Theatre's Lucky Dip of Theatrical Delights. Audiences liked it and we'll add a bit more spit n polish for another outing in the near future.

So husbands and hats there are aplenty, but grants, alas, are none. We applied to Culture Ireland for funds to take ourselves off to Brighton, where we are performing The World's Wife (yay!) next week. In feedback, CI told us we were unsuccessful because the Brighton Festival Fringe is uncurated and that Irish companies that have performed there found it difficult to attract audiences. So we're off on a wing and a prayer (a van and a ferry actually) and doubters be damned!

Then...the biggie. Arts Council Project Awards. We scoured the application guidelines, we had online-submission-technological-nervous-breakdowns, we had last minute dashes across Dublin with vital letters of recommendation. We had no luck. But we sleep easy, knowing we put in the best application we could have and that there are reasons decisions are made that have nothing to do with us, and everything to do with resources, regional balances and...oh, some other R word, like recession or something.

So now that the fanstastic project has gone the way of all flesh before ever it was made flesh, we have the time and space (if not the money) to consider other plans...and make other grant applications. We'll keep you posted...