So, I’m sitting in this lovely little pub in Doneraile, enjoying my second pint of Murphy’s and watching the races at Goodwood with a few crusty old locals, when JJ rushes in from across the street. She’d been helping at the ticket office, doing the community thing helping with the Literary Festival. I had been waiting for her but she was an hour early.
She sat down next to me and said, somewhat sheepishly, “Now, you can say no, obviously but…” When someone says this, all sorts of alarm bells go off in your head. As my grandfather always said, if they ask for volunteers for what is clearly going to be a rotten job, to take a step forward, always take one back.
Ever wary, I asked what she needed me to do. I figured she needed me to cover for her in the ticket office or something equally simple. This was not the case.
Today was the big opening of the festival and the queue for tickets had been quite long waiting for the doors to open. A lot of them were buying tickets to see Peter Duffy perform his one man, self devised show based on The Great Hunger, a poem by Patrick Kavanagh.
Having read the synopsis and knowing my fear of one person shows, I wasn’t really looking forward to it but we were all going anyway.
The performance was scheduled to be in a church hall but, at the last minute and because of lousy acoustics and even worse chairs, it was being moved to the back room of one of Doneraile’s numerous pubs. More importantly, Peter didn’t have a technical person.
Now, I don’t know what happened to the other one but JJ was asking if I’d do it. I was a bit uncertain. As I explained to her, it’s been about 14 years since I last ran the techs for a live show. Apparently it’s better than someone with no experience at all. With a modicum of fear, I agreed and we left the cosy pub for the performance space.
There I met Peter and Richard (one of the Festival committee members) trying to set up lights and organise the big cavernous space.
Actually ‘cavernous’ makes it sound awful when it was an excellent space and perfect for The Great Hunger.
It may have been 14 years but I stepped back into stage manager mode as if I’d just finished a production last weekend. And if I was really, really honest, I was enjoying it a LOT!
We adjusted the lights and JJ managed to put blackout curtains (which were normal curtains being used as blackout curtains) over the massive mirrors on the wall. Richard had to go as the opening event of the festival was drawing very near and JJ had to go and get changed for the same event. I had a ticket as well but needed to have a few tech runs with Peter to make sure we were both comfortable with the show.
There were 15 sound and various lighting cues to get to grips with but we managed to get to a point where he was confident that I was competent. I then insisted he have a break and chill for a bit. He drove us up to Creagh Castle where the opening event was to be.
I had intended to get changed but didn’t have time (although I did, as it turned out, because the opening was starting on Irish time) and felt a bit under-dressed surrounded by the glitterati of Doneraile in all their finery. Still, no-one was looking at me because they were feverishly waiting for the guest of honour, David Norris.
Now, I’d never heard of Mr Norris but was assured by those sitting around me that he was well worth hearing speak. Boy, were they right! The man is a powerhouse of oration. Incredibly funny, learned and charming. I think I could have sat and listened to him all night. But I didn’t have all night. I had to get back to the pub as curtain was fast approaching.
The Irish love a good story and seem to thrive on poetry. Because of this (and possibly because Patrick Kavanagh is rightly revered as one of the greats) there was an excellent turn out for the performance. And, I’m pleased to say, that the performance went very well.
Peter hadn’t performed it since last October but he was excellent. The audience loved him, hanging on every word. And I managed to work the light and sound without a mistake. So I felt good too!
After the performance, it was over to another pub for an open mic night of poetry, story telling and songs (and people buying me beer for being a hero). After a while the noise became excessive so we moved to another pub (the one I’d started in back at the beginning of this post) which was much more conducive to an open mic night that didn’t actually feature a microphone.
And we had a fantastic time. People with prodigious memories, reciting hilarious or sad poems while knocking back the Guinness. People in kilts playing Irish bagpipes and tiny flutes. An MC with an inexhaustible supply of jokes, which grew ruder as the night wore on. We even had a few self composed songs.
All in all, it was a fantastic night which saw us getting back to Bridget’s house just before 2am.
What an unexpectedly wonderful day it was…to be sure, to be sure.
I know you had a wonderful time it came through the blog
made me feel it as well and wish I had been there what
a perfect holiday and hope Jo was ok too.
love mum