We, The Little People

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. We performed The World's Wife at Body and Soul in Meath (or Westmeath?) last weekend. It was a rose garden venue, the lights were provided by the sun and the blue sky, and our audience lounged on beanbags and cushions. There was the teensy-weensy drawback of two massive sound systems on nearby stages ... let's just say our throats had out-of-body experiences.

We have started rehearsals for our next lunchtime (well, from 4pm to 5pm) show at Kelly's (12th-16th July and 22nd & 23rd July). It's our own adaptation of a book called 'Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland' by a chap called Thomas Crofton Croker. Written way back in the 1830s it's a collection of folk tales and fairy tales from The Plain People of Ireland. The stories are simple and strong, archetypal and ancient, funny and ... (some other word starting with f?)... forthright. We play English scholars (think Robin Flower, Sygne et al )and Irish peasants (you know yourself: Molly, Jack and all).

What splendid fun! And mighty craic!

The Kingdom. And Limerick.

Lights up. Breathe in. And speak. Half an hour earlier we had been standing outside St. John's in Listowel waiting for The Crowd from Dublin (aka Sunday Miscellany) to vacate the premises so we could start getting in our set. Our clothes rack was leaning at an angle between a jeep and the church wall, blown over by a mischievous 'breeze'. The steeple clock ticked on. We warmed up by getting giddy. There was no time to be nervous. Once we got the all clear, Diva One charged in with her drill, like a gunslinger into a Western Saloon. Divas Two and Three attended to the soft furnishings. Tara took to the lighting box. The lights went up (holy *@#!, a full house!) and the show went on. Afterwards, we walked around town, delighted to be recognised and praised. We were famous for the afternoon. For the whole afternoon!

Tara got news that weekend that she had won the PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Award for her play Grenades. A pity she was sitting on the bus to Galway and we were still in Kerry...

Then to Limerick, The Loft at the Locke Bar. A lovely venue not long open and run by Bottom Dog who were unfailingly helpful and kind. They're bringing their show Language Unbecoming a Lady to Galway later this year. Driving up and down between Galway and Limerick for the week, we became well accquainted with the traffic lights in Gort, the schizoid road that twists as far as Ballyline then runs straight as a die, the smack of a zillion bugs on the windscreen: summertime juice.

It was the week of 'the cough'. Not the audiences' but ours. There were three occasions of eye-popping, throat-hocking, voice-cracking coughing fits. There was even a nosebleed, though thankfully that was concealed behind a costume. Limerick audiences were wonderful though, and when they knew the actor was in trouble, they became even nicer, willing us to breathe, to make it to the end of the line. Thank you, Limerick! Thank you, Bottom Dog!

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.