THE Irish writer and actor Donal O'Kelly has won a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival for his one man show Catalpa.
The awards, which nearly always guarantee a show will sell out, were made yesterday in the Festival Fringe Club by the playwright Willy Russell.
"Relieved" was the word O'Kelly chose to describe his feelings on the occasion. He financed Catalapa's run in Edinburgh from his own resources.
It was originally produced by Red Kettle Theatre Company in Waterford and toured Ireland to great critical acclaim, but often to poor houses. Now O'Kelly feels there is a real chance the play may tour elsewhere.
The Fringe Firsts, up to eight of which are presented in each week of the three week festival, were inaugurated by the Scotsman newspaper in 1973. The newspaper's critics see over 350 shows in each week of the festival.
O'Kelly's play has also been selected as one of five theatre shows in the Lists top 20 for this week.
Catalapa tells the true story of a captain who hijacks his own vessel to rescue a group of Irish prisoners from a penal colony. There are strong echoes of Homer's Odyssey as O'Kelly's seaman vacillates between the adventurous pioneering side of his personality which demands that he be alone and the emotional side which demands that he stay with his family.
O'Kelly won another Fringe First in 1990 for his adaptation with Paul O'Hanrahan of Joyce's Finnegans wake.
The 38 year old actor who plays Bimbo in Stephen Frears's The Van has just returned from performing at the Gate Theatre's Beckett Festival in New York.