Damien Mulley

On the way to the Tate Modern for their Futurism exhibition and after finishing my Mister Whippy (threw away the flake) I popped into the Globe Theatre to see what they had free in the next 36 hours. Helen was the only free show and at 7 this evening. Romeo and Juliet is booked out for the season! So I chose Helen and the fantastic girl behind the counter gave me the best seat in the house (C40) which is front and centre.

She also discounted it from £40 to £20. I knew nothing about it going in. After a few minutes I thought I’d skip out halfway as I was knackered but as the show got going I didn’t want to. Helen is played by Penny Downie and she’s energetic and playful and you can see the audience hang on to her every reaction. Paul McGann who played I in Withnail in I plays Menelaus and feck me he has not aged one day since Withnail. I thought he was one of the younger McGanns actually.

The play itself is so so story wise but it’s a comedy and is highly playful and interactive with the audience. I heard some girls bitch after about it lacking meat, pah. It was was the most fun I’ve had at the theatre in ages and ages. The ending reminded me of the Monty Python Alien in Life of Brian but you know, funny. A cute touch too was the cast came out and danced in sync for the ovations. Very cool and very obviously they needed a good bit of choreography.

This wsa my first time in The Globe. It’s beautiful. Smaller than I would have imagined. A few shots from the iPhone of it:

Anything on in the Globe is worth going to. Who’s been?

Can you do this? Looking at you Gav.

Oh my god, is Mulley being sexist again? : eyesroll :

Tommy, Enda, Alan and others, avert your eyes.

You won’t get this in Alive magazine…

the always brilliant and insightful and playful and other words ending in ul but not bashful Maxi Cane decided to have fun encouraging people to write about more adult matters and created the Filthy Butt Fun competition. And then a sex toy company sponsored it. Genius marketing. Here are some winning posts from Elly, K8 and Jo.

Photo owned by Robert Couse-Baker (cc)

So Maxi is looking for new er entrants to the competition. Why not have a go? There’s nothing to lube lose. Submit your story.

The Abbey Theatre of late has started to try out social media with YouTube videos and a presence on Facebook. David from the Abbey invited me along on Friday to have a look at their prep for their Comedy of Errors play. This is Shakespeare with a few modern twists.

We walked around backstage and went up some stairs, passing some famous art on the way and went into where all the ropes and counterweights are, high above the side of the stage. From here all the curtains and scenery are controlled. Lots of nautical links with the ropes and all that. I’ve been watching Horatio Hornblower too much so I was really fascinated by this. It really is like a sailing vessel with curtains instead of sails but rigging and mostly unseen crew making sure those on the deck below can, in a way, sail.

An awful amount of work goes on behind the scenes in the Abbey for a single play to be shown. Weeks upon weeks of nonstop work goes into making a play work well each night. Think about the small amount of time, measured in hours, that a play has on that stage compared to the time that goes into getting it to that moment. An army of people squeezed into a small building are constantly and silently beavering away to entertain the public.

I got to watch the cast rehearse too which was fantastic and the acoustics in the Abbey are really impressive. The play itself is very phyical with the set being quite minimal. Scaffoldings are moved around the stage by the cast and given the size and weight of them, everyone in the cast is going to have strong legs and shoulders by the time the play ends.

Because of limited space they also have other rehearsal spaces outside of the Abbey and again due to space their large collection of art can’t be proudly showed off like they want it to be so they loan it out at times.

What was pretty interesting too is how the Abbey fosters new talent and they recently launched two programmes for this. The first of these launched last month and is the Abbey New Playwrights Programme. Over 11 months the Abbey will support 6 emerging playwrights with a series of workshops and talks with international and Abbey writers, directors, actors and designers. The playwrights are not expected to write a play but the Abbey will give them any help they do need. The second initiative takes place on June 15th this year for a week. Six 20 minute plays from female writers under the theme of ‘The Fairer Sex’ have been commissioned and readings of these will happen over the week.

The Comedy of Errors is running until May 1st. Anyone interested in availing of a bloggers tour of the Abbey, leave a comment here. Names will be picked out of a hat etc.

Update: Here’s the trailer for the play

Via Annette: The Tribune did a tut-tutting piece on Fearghus Ó Conchúir and grants he got to be able to do his work as dancer-in-residence for Dublin City Council. Some fancy editing suggested to me that the money was mis-spent:

Ó Conchúir, who lives in London, even managed to squeeze in trips to Shanghai during his tenure as Dublin’s dancer-in-residence. His job was to surprise and entertain members of the public with his impromptu routines.

Luckily Fearghus has a blog, a good one too so why not subscribe, so he got his right to reply to a dodgy piece of journalism.

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Dermod has reviewed Oedipus Loves You which is on at the Project Theatre for another few days. He suggests you get there and see it pronto.

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The concluding part of the Art of the Ordinary programme is on in Dublin this week.

Friday December 5th
Forum: Creating Memory 10.30am-12.30pm
Memory building and archiving in the context of current visual arts practice – to what extent and why, are artists exploiting the ‘folk’ memories and traditions of the past?
Speakers including: Linda Ballard, Curator, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum; Sonia Boyce, artist; Tony Candon, Director, National Museum of Ireland – Country Life; Pat Cooke, Lecturer, MA Arts Management, UCD; Andrew Duggan, artist; Sandy Fitzgerald, Director, Olivearte; Prof. Kerstin Mey, Director, Research Institute Art and Design, University of Ulster; and Aishling O’Beirn, artist.
Chair: Declan McGonagle, Director of the National College of Art and Design

Followed by interventions:
Sonia Boyce
Andrew Duggan
Alanna O’Kelly

Venue: Dublin City Library & Archive, 134-138 Pearse Street, Dublin 2

All events are free. A light lunch will be provided.

For more information please contact CityArts on 01-6394608 or thearchive@cityarts.ie