A weekend of gigs, festivals, theatre and relaxed transportation has put the summer season firmly on the map, and 'Irish Times' writers were there to watch it all unfold
The Black Eyed Peas
The O2, Dublin
DAVIN O’DWYER
At any given point in time, one particular act can justifiably lay claim to being the biggest band in the world – and at the moment, the Black Eyed Peas are that juggernaut. It would be easy to dismiss the phenomenally popular US band as brainless hip-pop, but their megahit, I Gotta Feeling, is an undeniable dancefloor classic, and their huge success in the past decade ensured a very diverse crowd at these shows, the beginning of the European leg of their mammoth “End” tour.
Support act Cheryl Cole offered up an energetic, fizzy set – suggesting that life after Girls Aloud won’t be too arduous for her – but it’s a rather thankless task to open for this particular main attraction. The extravagant, sci-fi production design confirmed that this tour is the musical equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster, while the dazzling outfits worn at the outset by Wil.I.Am, Fergie, Apl.de.ap and Taboo as they blasted through Let’s Get It Started were a fusion of Metropolis and Star Trek.
The pace barely slipped for two exhilarating, exhausting hours – a relentless aural and visual assault that pounded the senses, making the question of whether or not it was enjoyable rather redundant. It was the sort of production, full of blinding lights and ridiculous, hilarious set pieces – Wil.I.Am deejaying while dressed in an Iron Man suit, Taboo flying a Tron-style lightcycle over the crowd – that is nine parts theatrical excess to one part conventional gig. And nobody has more shamelessly invoked a placename to excite a crowd than Wil.I.Am, who seemed to replace a good portion of the band’s lyrics with “I love Dublin, I love the Irish ladies”. As the costumes became more extravagant, and the volume of the crowd ever louder, it became clear that Boom Boom Pow is not merely another party track, but the Black Eyed Peas’ concise manifesto.
Ending a set with the rapturous I Gotta Feeling, however – with confetti dancing in the air, lights fizzing across the arena and thousands of hands reaching for the heavens – is enough to torpedo any scepticism, any shred of doubt about whether this is really music at all. This was, indeed, a good night.
The Ones Who Kill Shooting Stars
Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda
CHRISTINE MADDEN
Ireland in the early 1940s, and bodies just keep washing up on the strand like jellyfish. Henry, a simple-minded but kind-hearted fellow, mans the outpost at Clogherhead, keeping an eye on the skies and sea for enemy attack. British or German.
He has a grá for a girl, Lizzie, we never see, but befriends another lost soul, Alice, who is planning to run away. His commanding officer, Edward – a wannabe intellectual with an ivory tower snugly and irretrievably lodged up his backside – strips the beached corpses of dead soldiers of their money and routinely gives out to Henry for firing off his flare gun. But the makeshift shooting stars it sends up provide Henry with his only chance at a wish and hope.
Desperate for love and personal recognition, Alice falls for one of the beached corpses – whom the audience see “come to life” and engage in a deep and meaningful relationship with Alice. In an Irish echo of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s story The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, the other women in Drogheda reportedly see her pushing the stiff about in a wheelbarrow and all want one – a woman even puts in an order for a dead Californian. By the end of the piece, Edward is sprawled out next to another washed-up soldier. Why the audience was deprived of payback and joy of the actual moment that Alice shot him with the flare gun to repel his advances is a lethal dramaturgical omission.
The script holds many examples of wit and beautiful language. A pity that such strong writing and a potentially promising premise never unfolds into a plot with drive or a theme of any relevance to contemporary Ireland. Conan Sweeny and John Currivan do particularly well as the sympathetic Henry and the dead/alive/dead soldier Eugene Dumas. The lack of focus and any real dramatic action, however, let down the valiant efforts of the cast and crew, who end up trying to reanimate a dead play in a wheelbarrow. On tour
Brighton
Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford
PETER CRAWLEY
When we first meet Jack Dunhill (Mark Lambert), glumly trailing in his electric wheelchair after nursing home assistant Dave (Andrew Macklin), he is a man who has given up not only on life, but also on belief. A professional actor, recently paralysed, Jack’s only sustaining pursuit now is his near-compulsive betting; adrift in a world of chance. This sets him distinctly apart from both the gregarious Dave and the irrepressible Lily Thompson (the soul of Garter Lane’s new production winningly played by Gillian Hanna), each of whom have one unswerving belief system: they are both football fans. In this London nursing home, you can either be a gambler or a supporter.
“I continue to cling to my place in the world,” says a vibrantly stubborn Lily. “I admire your tenacity, Lily,” replies a sullen Jack, “I wish I shared it.” That exchange, and countless variations of it, is Jim Nolan’s new play in a nutshell.
Unapologetically sentimental, it is a paean to succour and survival which director Ben Barnes matches with a production that urges us to park our cynicism at the door.
And so the sour and despondent Jack will introduce Lily to a world of accumulator bets and Yankees, while she will inspire him to reconsider an appointment with an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland for a braver gamble, a return to the stage. You can guess the rest.
There is certainly room in Nolan’s play for some grim considerations and grey areas, but despite the occasional concession to modernity (gay marriage, euthanasia and Wikipedia don’t rattle any character’s feathers) the tone of the play and production feels achingly nostalgic and relentlessly bright. Nursing homes rarely summon to mind a world of cheer and tranquillity, but Joe Vanìk’s manoeuvrable set appears first as a Zen garden and, despite several fussy changes, remains just as soothing under John Comiskey’s flattering lights.
If Nolan’s play makes similarly few demands of the audience, it is because the writer has a tendency to oversupply us with information. Exposition comes in easy streams, character histories are divulged in implausibly fluid movements, while the plot develops along some finely turned lines, gentle jokes and needless recapitulations.
It’s all well served by a warmly engaging Gillian Hanna, whose spry and amusing Lily radiates comfort, while an endearing Andrew Macklin, as her gay carer, also understands the mildly unreal tone. With his head bowed and his eyes slipping shyly, Mark Lambert is a picture of discomfort; understandably, for a character who doesn’t belong in this world. At one moment, when a major incident concerning Lily simply slips Dave’s mind, the play acquires the traction of impersonal reality. But Nolan’s sympathy wins out, his drive is to inspire, reassure and console. The consequence is a play that feels both gentle and glib, one that offers plenty to please but little to satisfy.
Runs until May 15
Bray Jazz Festival
Bray, Co. Wicklow
KEVIN STEVENS
No musical instrument bridges time and space like the guitar, from its origins in pre-history to its iconic status in popular music the world over. This year’s Bray Jazz Festival celebrated the instrument by presenting three very different headline guitar acts at the Mermaid Arts Centre, as well as performances by masters of the oud and kora, two of the guitar’s world-music cousins.
You couldn’t have found a more effective showcase for the guitar’s range and versatility. The Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel’s restrained lyricism and elegant lines – very much in the mainstream tradition of modern jazz guitar, though presented in a drumless trio format – were in utter contrast with American Wayne Krantz, who led his power trio through a blazing set of jazz-rock fusion and relentless free playing.
Muthspiel studied at the New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music; Krantz honed his aggressive style in the basement dive of New York’s 55 Bar. Both, however, have the improvisatory genius that marks a good jazz musician. As Krantz has put it, “To me jazz isn’t a language, a sound, a groove, or even a history. It’s an approach to playing, a commitment to creating spontaneously.”
No one created as spontaneously as Django Reinhardt, born a century ago this year. On Saturday, the London-born John Etheridge led his Sweet Chorus ensemble through a tribute to the great Gypsy guitarist.
Etheridge has huge technique and a wonderful feel for jazz history and with the help of his virtuosic violinist Chris Garrick, played arrangements of several Reinhardt classics, including Nuages and Swing 39, which swung as hard as if played by the Hot Club of France itself.
Though the guitar headliners were the centrepiece, for many the festival highlight was the Norwegian duo of Trygve Seim on saxophone and Frode Haltli on accordion, who played a sublime set of haunting acoustic music at Bray Town Hall. There was also much local talent on display, including sax giant Michael Buckley and Francesco Turrisi’s cross-cultural Tarab, the Mermaid Arts Centre’s ensemble in residence.
With recessionary times tightening budgets and sponsorship considerably, the festival programme’s quality and range is much to the credit of the organisers.
