First review is in for NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO POLES. The reviewer sees the play as ‘a new look at an old problem’ and gives it a fairly decent write-up. I was pleased with it, and I think the cast can be too. There are several more reviews due out on Wed/Thurs this week. Looking forward to them!
http://www.reviewsgate.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7449
OUR FIRST WEEEK DOWN AND WE LEARN THAT WE HAVE OUT-PERFORMED THE LAST PLAY AT THE VENUE – WHICH WAS AN ALAN AYCKBURN OFFERING! EAT YOUR HEART OUT, ALAN!
AUDIENCE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN VERY GOOD, AND THE RESPONSE EVEN BETTER. EVERYBODY SEEMS TO HAVE GOOD WORDS TO SAY ABOUT IT. ONE INTERESTING COMENT I MUST RELATE; A WOMAN FROM CORK WHO HAD MARRIED A BLACK MAN TOLD ME SHE HAD RECEIVED DOGS ABUSE – AS HAD MANY OTHER IRISH WOMEN IN THE SAME POSITION. HOWEVER, SHE SAID, IRISHMEN WHO HAD MARRIED BLACK WOMEN HADN’T HAD THE SAME ABUSE. NOW, THAT IS INTERESTING!
NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO POLES
PENTAMETERS THEATRE, HEATH ST, HAMPSTEAD, LONDON NW3 6TE
TUE – SAT 8pm SUN 5pm. ENDS 7th June
box office 0207 435 3648
MISS IT AT YOUR PERIL!
NO BLACKS,NO DOGS, NO POLES
by
Tom O’Brien
World premiere
PENTAMETERS THEATRE, 28 HEATH ST. LONDON NW3 6TE
20th May – 8th June…….Tues – Sat 8pm…Sun 5pm…adm. £12 & £10
Directed by Jesse Cooper….Produced by Leonie Scott-Matthews
The dysfunctional Kennedy clan are having a re-union. There’s the father, Con, a successful building contractor in London who has had to relocate back in Ireland because of tax irregularities in the UK. Con is secretly bisexual, although not-so-secret from his wife, Marion, who has known it all along and kept quiet about it. His estranged son, Michael, turns up after five years in Australia with Cathy, his new aborigine wife. To say his parents are surprised would be putting it mildly. His nephew, Jimmy, also turns up and it is soon apparent that his racist, bigoted views haven’t mellowed any as he has got older.
We learn…
View original post 464 more words
NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO POLES
@PENTAMETERS THEATRE, HEATH ST, HAMPSTEAD LONDON NW3 6TE
20th May – 7th June…Tue – Sat 8pm…Sun 5pm (close to Hampstead Tube station)
WELL, WE ARE UP AND RUNNING WITH THE SHOW. AND VERY NICELY TOO. OPENING NIGHT ON TUE WAS BRILLIANT – YEAH, I KNOW, I WOULD SAY THAT ANYWAY! – BUT IT IS TRUE. IF MONDAY’S DRESS REHEARSAL WAS A BIT OF A STAGGER-THROUGH, THIS WAS 100% BETTER. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS WITH ACTORS BUT PUT AN AUDIENCE IN FRONT OF THEM AND THE ADRENALIN KICKS IN AND THEY NEARLY ALWAYS RISE TO THE OCCASION. AND SO IT WAS ON TUE. OF COURSE IT HELPS IF THE AUDIENCE IS RESPONSIVE – AND THEY WERE. ALL WE NEED NOW ARE A COUPLE OF DECENT REVIEWS TONIGHT (PRESS NIGHT) AND WE CAN ALL RLAX A LITTLE BIT.
NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO POLES
PENTAMETERS THEATRE, 28 HEATH ST, HAMPSTEAD LONDON NW3 6TE (HAMPSTEAD TUBE)
TUE – SAT 8pm SUNS 5pm UNTIL SAT 7th JUNE – ADM 12 & 10 pounds
SAW THE DRESS REHEARSAL OF ‘NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO POLES’ LAST NIGHT. IN A WAY IT WAS A VERY STRANGE FEELING, SITTING THERE IN AN EMPTY THEATRE, WATCHING THE WORDS YOU HAVE WRITTEN TAKING ON A LIFE OF THEIR ON ON THE STAGE. THEY HAVE BEEN FLESHED OUT, GIVEN A BODY, GIVEN LIFE, BEING PREPOSTEROUS, BEING OUTRAGEOUS, BIGOTED AND SOMETIMES DOWNRIGHT RACIST, AND YOU SIT THERE WONDERING WHAT THE AUDIENCE WILL MAKE OF IT ALL.
WELL, TONIGHT WE WILL FIND OUT. I THINK THEY WILL BE PLEASANTLY SURPRISED. IT WASN’T PERFECT BY ANY MEANS – BUT THAT’S WHAT DRESS REHEARSALS ARE FOR!
MY DAUGHTER KAREN AND MY GRANDSON ZOHAR
I WON’T BE ON HERE MUCH THIS WEEK AS MY NEW PLAY OPENS TOMORROW AND I WILL BE OCCUPIED WITH THAT.
NORMAL SERVICE SHOULD RESUME NEXT WEEK!
,
LACKENDARA by Tom O’Brien
Ah Lackendara
You heard the voices too
At Passchendaele where you
Cowered as the big guns
Bombarded your world to silence
Blasted your thoughts to kingdom come
And left you forlorn
On that ragged outcrop
In the foothills of the Comeraghs
The fox and the curlew your only companions
The gurgling Mahon Falls
All there was to quench your thirst.
For thirty years you trod those hills
Taking little notice
Of ordinary life around you going on
Your presence on the mountain a constant reminder
Of mans’ inhumanity to man.
Jim Fitzgerald, ‘Lackendara’, with an unknown female.
Jim Fitzgerald, known as ‘Lackendara’, lived halfway up the Comeragh Mountains for over forty years. His home was a cave of sorts, with a roof comprised of bits of driftwood, stones and soil, and an entrance concealed by strips of hanging grain bags. A veteran of WW1, where he was said to have suffered shell-shock, he spent the remainder of his life in isolation in this rugged and unforgiving terrain in the foothills of the Comeraghs. He was known as a hermit, though he did venture down to the nearby village of Kilmacthomas every few weeks to collect and spend his pension on some essential groceries etc, but he never dwelt longer than was necessary, happy, it seems, to be back in the isolation of his Comeragh home, where sheep, foxes, and other wild animals were his only companions.
Jim Fitzgerald with Marcela Kirwan in 1955
The only time I ever saw him was in 1958, when a group of us were on a day’s trekking from the Technical College in Portlaw. We had cycled the 10 miles from the college to Mahon Falls, an amazing spot where the river mahon gurgled and rushed down the craggy rocks, before forming the river proper. We had spent most of the day climbing the mountain to get to Coumshingaun, a silent, eerie lake which was near the top, and to investigate Crotty’s Eye, a needle-like projection nearby, where the highwayman, Crotty, watched weary travellers negotiate a treacherous pass through the foothills, before way-laying them and robbing them of their money and valuables. Crotty was eventually hanged for his crimes in Waterford City.
On our way back down we saw Lackendara in the distance, heading for his ‘home’ which was nearby. He didn’t see us because there was a large boulder between us and he was pre-occupied with a fox, which had been following him. He stopped and gave it some food from a bag he was carrying, before patting it on the head and disappearing inside his cave. The fox finished eating then trotted in to the cave after him!
Lackendara died the following year, aged 68.
BOY
You won’t remember this
But I will
You changed again, got bigger
Both in body and in mind
One foot is the man you want to be;
The other is the boy
You so carelessly leave behind
from my latest collection of poems, ’67’. http://www.tinhuttalespublishers.co.uk/67/
Rehearsal pictures of NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO IRISH POLES, taken at Pentameters Theatre
All photos are by SIMON PURSE
Matthew Ward as Con
Jack Badley as Jimmy
Rachel Summers as Cathy & Lucy Aley-Parker as Marion
Jimmy, Con & Nathaniel Farnington as Michael
Jesse Cooper as JJ with Marion
BISEXUAL FATHER + RACIST COUSIN + ABORIGINAL WIFE = RACISM AND BIGOTRY IN IRELAND. DONT MISS!
My Writing Life 