There is a low whistle when Mr Knightly kisses Emma at the close of the play in Dublin's Olympia Theatre. There is a bit of a hiss and a chuckle when Mr Churchill kisses Jane Fairfax. The groups of school students lend the night's performance an extra thrill.
The lively stage adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Emma, by Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy, goes down well with all present. Leaving Cert students Jennifer Dunne (17), Emer Morrissey (17) and Laura McGill (17) are with teacher Mary Gillan from Hartstown Community School to see the show. Vanessa Berman, from Rathmines, an English student at TCD, is there too. Michael Scott, artistic director of the SFX, is there to enjoy the night, as is David Collopy, general manager of Opera Ireland, and his wife, Eileen.
Kathy Purcell, from Thurles, and Anne-Marie McAuley, from Kildare, are there too to enjoy the Storytellers Theatre Company performance. Breezing in too is Bernice Turner, manager in Ireland of Pact@Temple Bar, the arts initiative which links Dublin and Aberystwyth. Also in the audience is Peter Hanly, who plays Ambrose in Ballykissangel. His lips are sealed as to the fate of his character - "Tune in on Sunday," he says.
Bairbre Ni Chaoimh, actor and director, is just back from London where she directed three of the plays at the highly successful Beckett binge at the Barbican. You'll remember her as the woman Miley had that affair with in Glenroe.
Backstage before the show nobody can say "break a leg" to actor Kevin Flood, who plays Emma's cane-thumping father. The limp is genuine: he has a chipped knee-cap, but the show must go on.