Nighttime Rescue

I have a confession to make, and I hope you won't think less of me once I tell you.  

One of the things I've been fascinated about for a long time is the practice of "dumpster diving", basically rooting around in skips for bits of use or value, or that are vaguely edible.  I understand that (mostly in the States, but also in the UK) there are Freegans, who live solely off what they find in dumpsters in their locality, relying on them for food, clothes, furniture, you name it, basically.

Well, after work this evening as I was walking my sister home (about 1 am), we discovered a huge metal skip that had been placed in the car park outside her apartment and filled with junk.  I didn't even think much about it, until my sister, who I think will probably wish to remain nameless for this one, gasped, pointing at a box of books sticking out of the lower end.  My jaw dropped - who throws out books? 

So I pulled a few out.  

Then, looking higher up the mound of rubbish, and seeing more boxes with books and DVDs in them I clambered up and on top of the heap and had a bit of a rummage.  Sister was mortified, but very nicely stuck around, hissing at me to get down, mind, but not wanting to leave to go inside - I suppose in case I broke my neck getting out of it.  Every time a car passed she hid around the side of the skip, and at one point a few people passed on foot, and she feigned interest in the property listings in the auctioneer's window.  I just stayed still, hoping to remain unnoticed in all the dross.  I think I probably spent about 15 minutes up there, during which time I found a discarded holdall and shoved as many books as I could inside, along with some DVDs, a few of those small records (45s?) and a painting of a sheep.  I was going to leave the sheep, but there was a sticker with €20 handwritten on the frame, so I said I might as well.  The frame was smashed to bits, so I left that. To be honest, not many of the titles appealed to me all that much, there seemed to be a good few about Germany and World War II, but I will go through them again in the morning, and what I don't want I'll drop down to the charity shop.  Honestly, throwing out books!

My swag is currently drying out around the dehumidifier.  I will review the situation in the morning, but overall I'm pretty happy with the night's achievements.

Listowel Writer's Week 2014 (Part 2) Revenant

I had been expecting to work last night, but I got a call in the morning asking if I could fill in for somebody who was sick, so I did and got the evening free.  I have a Couchsurfer staying for the weekend, a regular Writer's Week attendee, and she had booked a ticket to the play in St. John's, so I said I'd head along too.

The play was called Revenant, but this wasn't published in any of the booklets or on any of the listings for St. John's.  Last minute cancellation by the production that was originally supposed to be on, and this one had filled in at the last minute (somewhat ironic as this is more or less exactly how Revenant opens).  The result was an audience of about twenty people, which was a pity.

Before I go on, I should probably make it quite clear that I am not a theatre critic, but I know what I like and I'm well able to give out if something is shite, although I may not have the vocabulary or insight required to pull each part of a play to pieces and examine each bit in detail (although maybe I'm being too generous to theatre critics), but I really, really enjoyed this show.


Simon Toal's solo performance in this play by Stuart Roche was nothing short of outstanding.  He narrates as Carter, a film director whose lead actor lets him down two days before they start filming a zombie movie on an island off the coast of Mayo, but suggests a mysterious replacement, the dark and enigmatic Vardell, who, it turns out, has his own agenda.  I don't want to give away anything about the plot, so that's about all I'll tell you - but you can check out the official blurb in the link here.
I'll be honest, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, and as it was my first time seeing a solo performance, I had to get used to Toal being 'more than one person' as he played out both sides of a conversation.  But he did it utterly convincingly, and by scene two I was immersed in the story, which moves quickly, but coherently, darkly, but with plenty of witty observations and interactions thrown in to lighten it.  I find myself smiling every time I think of his lines as the 'Rich Kid'.  There were stages where I forgot where I was, when I was actually on the island with Carter as he went looking for Vardell; when I started at moments of high suspense; and plenty where I laughed out loud.  

The quote from the Irish Times review, included on the advertising for the show, mentions 'media in-jokes', and there were, and I got a good few of them, but there were probably a few I missed.  I would enjoy it if Daniel Radcliffe were to find himself in the audience, though.

Overall, can't fault it anywhere, I know I probably should, to make for a proper review but like I said, I'm not a critic (though I can be critical) .  I would highly recommend to anyone who is in Dublin this Friday (6th June) to make their way to Draícht in Blanchardstown to check it out.  I think it's also going to be in Galway sometime soon, so you might try that either.

Due to the small audience and the fact that he was a spectacularly nice guy, I had the opportunity to chat with Simon and his wife (or partner - didn't ask), but only after my Couchsurfer had got him to put back on his stage clothes so she could get a few pics of him, which she did, for about 10 minutes, getting him to take up different poses, even though the poor man must have been exhausted.  It had been an energetic, 85 minute performance, for which he spoke almost constantly, he had to have been exhausted, but he played along for as long as it took.  A true gent, and I was happy to have got the opportunity to congratulate him.  I will be eagerly looking out for more from both Stuart Roche and Simon Toal in future.

As an aside, it so happens that I'll be in Dublin myself next Friday evening, but I'll be attending what I've taken telling people (including Mr. Toal) is a stag, but is actually a 'pre-hen'.  A new term that means that I can go out with my soon-to-be-wed friend Elaine and many of the other ladies who will be attending the actual hen, being held the following night in a mystery location, but without the willy straws and what have you.  It's just easier to say it's a stag.  People ask less questions.  It is unfortunate timing though, because otherwise I would be sending them all to Revenant.

Listowel Writer's Week 2014 and other stories

Hello again.

The less said about April's high hopes for a solid month of daily blog entries, the better.  I should probably have set the bar a little bit lower.  Maybe three a week.  I might try that this month.  No promises, let's see what happens.

News-wise, I suppose I probably should let you know that the relationship with Anne-Sophie that I introduced just seven entries ago has, sadly, come to an end.  'Ran out of road', as the man says.  I am confident that we will remain good friends.

One thing I have since discovered about myself that I am quite bad at relaying this information to people who I should probably inform - don't really like talking about my personal life (just rather spew it all onto the internet, I suppose).  'People I should inform' really means the people who know both of us, or who I work with, who during the course of a conversation will ask how she is.  Now, if they phrase it, 'How's herself?'  or similar, this leaves me open to divulge that there is no longer a 'herself', but that Anne-Sophie is fine, which is grand.  What tends to happen, though is that people will ask, 'How's Anne-Sophie?', and so I launch into the answer of the question, 'Happy out now, sure she's found a new job and it's going well,' etc, and the further I get into it the harder it gets to then add the news about the break-up.  Ah well, word will get around soon enough I suppose.

Now, for Writer's Week, which is probably why you're reading this (that being the title).  I have been working in Listowel for years, and have been around for Writer's Week most of them, but when I was living outside of town, coming in to see what was happening on my nights off seemed like too much hassle, when I wasn't really sure if there'd be anything I'd be interested in.  Now that I'm within easy walking distance from all the events, though, I'm sorry I didn't make the effort before. 

Thursday night was the only night that I expected to have off, and I was caught up between doing the Literary Pub Trail at 8 pm, described in the leaflet as a "drama-filled trail of the hosteleries of Listowel", and a play in St. John's at 8:30 pm.  In the end, my friend and I decided that we'd start out on the Pub Trail, which was free, and if it was shite, we'd skip on over to St. John's, as we'd be setting off in the Square anyway. Thankfully the Abbeyfeale Drama Group put on an excellent show for us on our tour of the pubs, and we didn't even think about jumping ship (just as well, as the queue for the play was out the door, so there wasn't much chance of getting seats).  The drama provided were amusing scenes from the plays of John B. Keane, most of which I hadn't seen before, and all of which made me want to see the whole thing when I get the chance. I did notice that in the first pub (Christy's - where we were treated to an early scene from The Field), most of the crowd bought drinks, and had time to get them down, but as we progressed the interval between venues became tighter.  The bar that seemed to do the worst out of this was probably Mike the Pie's, as it was the third bar on the trail, and the penultimate destination.  The scene from Moll that was performed in the Saddle previously had been shorter than the first, I think, so people may have had to knock back their drinks.  That is only a theory I developed to explain why so many of the audience in Mike the Pie's seemed to be without a glass in hand, a phenomenon I hadn't remarked on in the others.  I would assume that Brosnan's did well out of the fact that it was the last venue and thus had a good few people stay on after the scene from Big Maggie.  If I had to chose one of the acts we saw, my favourite would have to have been the scene from The Chastitute, it seems like an hilarious play which I look forward to catching in full at the next possible opportunity.  Thank you, Abbeyfeale Drama Group, for a marvelous evening.

Finished the evening off in John B. Keane's pub (where else would you finish up for Writer's Week) and enjoyed the banter and atmosphere.  I did feel a bit out of place at first, as I didn't have floppy hair, a cravat, a waistcoat or a pocket watch, but I got used to it.

The highlight of the week, for me was last night, which I will proceed to tell you in a separate post.