Roddy Doyle's loveable barflies radicalized

I wrote this in response to Mr. Doyle's barflies discussing the recent tragedy in Brussels. A lot of people think it's real which is equally gratifying and worrying.

Sunday Sermon Podcast

Good news everybody. I've succumbed to your latest online petition and started doing a weekly current affairs podcast in character as a moronic cleric. Hope you enjoy it.

http://sundaysermonpodcast.com/


Special thanks to Conor O'Toole, Emma Keaveney and Diarmuid O'Brien.

Couples Counselling

It's been over a few weeks since the end of the initial run of "Couples Counselling" at Smock Alley and feeling has just about returned to my legs. As a director I had less and less to do as the opening night approached  - the strenuous business of line learning and running around for an hour was effortlessly performed by the cast - but I'm a lazy man and even the shortest prolonged burst of effort can leave me bedridden for weeks at a time. 

"Couples Counselling" is a modern day farce about a compulsive liar who, upon learning his psychiatrist has organised a couples counselling session behind his back, enlists his friend to act as his favourable fake shrink. I roped in Ed Sammon and used his star wattage to attract a complimentary cast of comedy cool cats, namely Stephen Colfer, Hannah Mamalis and Philippa Dunne. Ed and I made a sketch called "Successful Man" with Hannah a few months earlier. She's one of the funniest and most fearless comedy performers going, and an excellent writer to boot.

She and Stephen are part of a brilliantly talented comedy group called Dreamgun. They're a Dublin based group of whizkids who make amazing live and filmed sketches. They sometimes do staged readings of blockbuster movies to raise funds for their various endeavours. Stephen played Dr. Alan Grant in their Jurassic Park staged reading and was a very funny straight man. Philippa is from the legendary Irish comedy group Diet Of Worms and is something onto the Irish Catherine O'Hara. She's a comedy savant. Everyone worked really hard and contributed great gags and character moments to the different drafts of the script.

 

The show was presented as a work-in-progress as part of Smock Alley's Scene + Heard festival for new work. We had two successful nights and are now applying to the Dublin Tiger Fringe. We're hoping to do a bit more work on it before debuting the show proper.