OnTheTown: The European premiere of a new play by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh took place at Dundrum's new state-of-the-art Mill Theatre in south Dublin this week.
Babylon Heights, by Welsh (author of the cult novel, Trainspotting) and fellow writer Cavanagh, who is from Bradford in the UK, looks at what happened behind the scenes in 1935 when the small people who played the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz were segregated and treated badly.
The play "is about people journeying, trying to fulfil their dreams", said Cavanagh. "The dog got paid more than the small people. We just thought about the inhumanity of that, trying to imagine what happened to those characters.
"We were fascinated by the film. It's classic. Everyone has seen it. The Munchkins were integral to the film and no one has ever told their story."
The general message of the play, "about people going to Hollywood 70 years ago", is that "it's still the same as now".
Among those at the opening night of Babylon Heights were Edel Coffey, of the female rock group, Medea, and her friend, Ruth Murphy, from Donnybrook, Dublin; London-based television producer Jemma Rodgers; publicist Nick Leese; actor John Lovett; and writer Neil Hegarty, who has been recently been commissioned by Piatkus Press to write a history of Dublin.
Writer Pat Larkin, former drummer with the Blades, was there too, happy to report that his book, The Coalboat Kids, an account of growing up in Ringsend, Dublin, in the 1970s, will be turned into a film, to start shooting later this month under the direction of Graham Cantwell, director of Babylon Heights.
Artist David Franklin, whose paintings also went on show on the same night at the Mill Theatre, was there with his friend, musician Dan O'Connor, guitarist with the band, Boss Volenti.
Also in attendance were Pádraig Murray, president of Irish Equity; film producer Tom Maguire; camera assistant Denise Woods and Barbara Henkes, of the film resource centre, Filmbase; and theatre consultant Tony Ó Dálaigh and his wife, actor Margaret Ó Dálaigh.
Babylon Heights, by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh continues at the Mill Theatre in Dundrum until next Sat