DESPITE making her professional debut on the Andrew's bane theatre stage last Thursday night and being the only novice in the cast Anna Maria McCarthy insisted she was untroubled by nerves. The former Miss Ireland is now appearing in William Rocke's new play What's A Promise In A Place Like This but she's making no promises about what audiences can expect.
On the other hand, she is anxious to point out that acting isn't a recently discovered interest. "Anyone who knows me will be aware that I've always talked about appearing on the stage." She began attending the Brendan Smith Academy at the age of seven, before moving on to Belly Ann Norton's theatre school, studied, dance and drama for a year at Marino College and now takes classes at the Gaiety School of Acting. Even her year as Miss Ireland (a title won in August 1994) was put to good use "It gives you an awful lot of confidence.
Although she says her mother Dr Mary McCarthy once harboured ambitions to be a dancer, she is the only thespian in the family father Tim is a barrister while her three older brothers, Daniel, Tim and Gerald, are a financial controller, computer consultant and electronic engineer respectively.
The last of these lives in Saudi Arabia and is unlikely to catch her performance this time, but all the others will have been in the audience at Andrew's Lane by tonight. There won't, however, be a boyfriend because at the moment she doesn't have one. Still, on Valentine's Day she did receive three cards. All were anonymous but, appropriately enough given her acting ambitions, one of them was signed with the pseudonym "Bob Hope".