the black watch

Myself and the missus took ourselves off to the RDS last night. It wasn't for Kanye West or the Ideal Homes exhibition or anything like that. It was to check out one of the feted plays in this years Dublin Theatre Festival. The show in question is called Black Watch. I saw the festival director on the TV last week saying it was the best piece of theatre produced anywhere in the world in the last few years. As soon as I heard that I lowered my expectations. I hate it when fuckers tell you something is going to be brilliant only for it to turn out to be shite. I need not have been so cynical or disbelieving. The show was great. It's produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and directed by some bloke called John Tiffany. Its apparently based on interviews with former soldiers who served in Iraq and it examines what it means to be part of the legendary Black Watch Regiment, what it means to be part of the war on terror, and what it means to make the long journey home. It was a gripping hour and forty five minutes or so and for a large part of it there was definite sensory assault. I'll not bother reviewing it because that's not my thing but you can read the review in todays Irish Times. I'd recommend that you check it out if it comes around again. I've more freaky theatre lined up for tomorrow evening when I go and see Metamorphosis . Written by Kafka, with music by Nick Cave and half of it staged on the ceiling, you just know its going to be mental.

I made peace with a little part of myself the other day when I finally got my hands on a 12 inch copy of the Foul Play remix of 'Renegade Snares' by Omni Trio. I've been wanting a copy of this old drum and bass tune for years. It's in my top three favourite jungle tunes ever and now it stands on the shelf gathering dust alongside a couple of hundred other jungle classics. Big up to Gerry in Beatfinder Records for not selling it to anyone else (despite his best efforts).

A seven inch of note that's found a new home in Chez Vinyl is the second release in the Powerful Beacon series. It sees hip-hop producer Samon Kawamura remix a classic hip-hop tune by OC called Times Up. The Powerful Beacon project aims to reintroduce hip hop classics to the modern listener by having them remixed by contemporary producers. It's nowhere near as good as the original but its still pretty great. It was released on Takeshi Records some time earlier this year.

anyone for Denis?

The more I think about it the more impressed I am. There really is no end to Dennis McNulty’s talents. Not content with being a general man about town, he consistently has a finger in a number of pies. The latest project that Dennis has on the go is the upcoming i-and-e festival thath will be held in Dublin this coming weekend. Whilst other saps are content to use the bar in The Globe or upstairs in Carnival for their shitty weekenders, Dennis et al use foresight, vision and some good planning to come up with venues that are off the beaten track. The gigs are to be held in the Unitarian Church on Stephens Green and the Peppercanister Church on Mount Street Crescent.

For those of you who may not know about I-and-e David Lacey & Dennis McNulty established it in 2003. In 2004 Paul Vogel joined them and then there were three. i-and-e organise irregular concerts of contemporary improvised music and have been involved in organising concerts in Cork, Belfast and Paris, but they generally take place somewhere in Dublin. This year they have an international array of musical oddballs to either freak you out or to get your mojo rising. Either way it would be well worth attending. So forget about that trip to the cinema this weekend, go to I-and-e instead.

I’ll keep going on the Dennis theme for the moment. Another pal, Denis Clohessy, has done the music and sound design for the Seamus Heaney version of ‘The Burial at Thebes’ playing in the Abbey Theatre from April 4th. Always a busy man, Denis has also done the music and sound design for the upcoming Conor McPherson play ‘The Seafarer’. By a strange coincidence, my wife went to college with Conor whilst I went to college with Dennis. It’s a sad old day when you’re living your life through the artistic accomplishments of your classmates but sure fuck it I’ve no shame. A further coincidence sees our mate Phelim Drew star in the production. No matter how hard he tries he’ll always be Uncle Finbarr from the HB ice cream ad to me. Given that he and his missus have just had a set of twins I don’t know how he manages to remember his lines. Since our most recent arrival I can hardly remember my fucking name. Anyway, seeing as this production has a whole host of friends and acquaintances working on it I have to fully endorse it. It premieres on the 26th April in the Abbey Theatre and then does a tour of the country stopping off in Galway between June 10th-14th, Cork between June 17th-21st and Letterkenny between June 24th – 28th.

madlib on parnell street

Myself and the missus hopped on the bikes last night and headed over to the Tivoli Theatre on Francis St. The Tivoli is not a venue that I've frequented too many times over the years. The first time I was there was about 1987 for a schhol trip to a Shakespeare production. The second time was to see Cork band The Caroline Shout whose keyboard player was a mate of my brothers. The next time was to see Alex Reece. I was also at a couple of other crappy dance nights during my raving years but none of them were too memorable to even mention. Last night I went to see a production in the Dublin Theatre Festival called 'The Pride of Parnell St'. It's written by a bloke called Sebastian Barry who I know nothing about. My wife however knows enough about him to have bought tickets for said play. So we found ourselves in the Tivoli and it hasn't changed one bit since my first visit twenty years ago. By that I mean that its stilll a bit of a kip. Musty old seats with ashtrays on the back of them, a throwback to times past. The good old days when you could smoke a fag during a play.

The play is too depressing to write about. Suffice to say there were tears at the end. I had a selfish reason to go as a mate was doing the music for it. As it turned out the music was fairly incidental and was used to break the monologues by the two characters in the play. That's not to say it wasn't good, but there wasn't much of it. Maybe that's a good thing. You shouldn't be going to the theatre for the music, unless of course its a musical that you're going to. As myself and my missus stood outside the Tivoli unlocking our bikes and still teary-eyed from the play we bumped into Kittser on his way into Madlib. Choice Cuts have put on a few gigs by hip-hop legends over the last couple of days including the likes of Mosdef and De La Soul. I was too sad to go hip-hopping so we hip-hopped on our bikes and went home.

la clique, ces't chic!

I took a trip down to the Speigeltent last night to see another FringeFest show. Le Clique is somewhat of a mix between a circus and a burlesque show. I was going to review it but then I found this review which kind of says everything that I wanted to say. It appears that much the same show was performed last year in the Spiegeltent in New York. There were some minor differences between the two shows. The review makes no mention of the lady who arrived on stage with nothing on except for a few strings of pearls and flailed wildly to Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'. It was pretty crap and it went on for the whole song. It stole 5 and a half minutes of my life that I'll never get back. The only other difference between the shows was an appearance by Irish entertainer, Kenneth Fall, from the Tumble Circus. He was highly entertaining and he kept his clothes on. There were however two standout highlights, Yulia Pikhtina and her hula hoop act and Captain Frodo, the genial contortionist. Here's Captain Frodo doing his thing at a Just for Laughs show in Montreal.

treading the boards

Never being the type to shy away from a bit of culture I found myself in Players Theatre in Trinity College last evening. Usually I’d be caught up in musical pursuits but the latent thespian in me needed to scratch the theatre itch I felt. I dropped in on ‘Gerry & The Peace Process’, Volta Productions offering in the Dublin Fringe Festival.

It was a bit of a hoot if the truth be told. It was a tongue in cheek view of the last thirty years in Northern Ireland as seen through the glasses of Gerry Adams. Adams is adeptly played by one of the show’s writers, Liam Hourican. He’s done a good job of nailing the West Belfast accent and his singing and dancing is not bad either. Sean Duggan who plays the character of Martin McGuinness lends able support but somehow manages to look like Mrs Doubtfire when he puts his cardigan on. Jim Roche, playing a number of characters (David Trimble, John Hume, Aengus O'Snodaigh etc) manages to steal most of the limelight with a brilliant vaudeville performance. The remaining limelight must go to the musicians who not only display versatility in their delivery of many musical styles but also lend their services to matters centre stage when needed. Bravo chaps.

The show reminded me a little of ‘Candide’ by The Performance Corporation, which debuted in the Fringe Festival in 2002. This was the first piece of work by Jo Mangan & Tom Swift (the former Today FM newsreader) and it was a double award winner in both the Irish Times Theatre Awards and the Dublin Fringe Festival 2002. With ‘Candide’, Swift & Mangan managed to interweave pre-recorded sound and vision into live production. It turned out very well and I suppose that’s why it won all those awards.

Gerry & The Peace Process nods in that direction and it comes as no surprise to learn that Hourican had starred in The Performance Corporation production of Seven Deadly Sins a few years ago. Volta have also attempted to marry technology with the live aspect and to some degree it works but for the most part it served only to distract both the audience and the cast. On a number of occasions the syncing was out when there was interplay between the live actor and the recorded footage. The 'MTV Cribs' parody was inspired but it would be more suited to the medium of television instead of being shown on a projector screen in Players Theatre. In a nutshell, lose the video, keep the songs.

All said and done I reckon it was very funny and I was creased over laughing on a number of occasions. I’ve told everyone to go to see it and now I’m telling you. Don’t listen to the shite I talk. Go and see it for yourself. Be quick though, its finished on Sunday evening.