Offering the best of professional dramatic performance, this year’s Fit-Up Theatre Festival runs from July 8 to August 3, in towns, villages and islands all over West Cork.
With a nod to the tradition of Fit-Up theatre of the 1950s, the West Cork Fit-Up Theatre Festival has been providing rural communities, where there is a lack of accessibility to professional theatre, an opportunity to sample some of the wealth and talent professional theatre has to offer since its establishment in 2009 by Geoff Gould.
Week one (July 8-13) in the programme brings us ‘Paddy: The life and times of Paddy Armstrong’. A one-man show, starring Don Wycherley as Paddy, the play is inspired by Paddy’s memoir ‘Life After Life, a Guildford Four Memoir’ (2017). Fifty years after his wrongful conviction, at the age of 74, Paddy is facing into his twilight years and wrestling with a thousand turbulent memories. In Paddy he relives the journey that forever altered his destiny. Billed as “not to be missed” by the Irish Times, Paddy is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of forgiveness, reminding us that the privilege of freedom and love, family and everyday life can restore us and mend the scars of even the most savage injustice.
Week 2 (July 15-20) serves up a selection of compelling theatrical performances.
A play about rural Irish life and the way we cope with the inevitable, ‘The Sand Park’ is the sometimes hilarious account of how James Anthony Lowery, a man in his mid-fifties, came to terms with the death of his son, fifteen years ago and now more recently, his wife Rose.
Up next in ‘Padraig Potts’, we meet Padraig Potts McKeirnan, who has a habit of just eating whatever is on his plate… metaphorically that is… from growing up near the tiny rural village of Drumnamee, County Leitrim in the ’70s and ’80s to falling in love with Silvia Lang, a perfect protestant girl… to marrying Mary Tague, the priests’ housekeeper, who he never really liked… to getting rid of Mary Tague and her mother, who he claims invented vinegar… and eventually to the realisation that the world isn’t as big as he first thought.
‘The Ballad of Mossy Flood’ might just save humanity from self-destruction. Mossy Flood has a knack of going the long way around a story. In so doing, he makes us laugh and examine ourselves in a way we haven’t done before. He might be an unsociable odd-ball with a big thick head, but his wrestle with the everyday is pure gold. He will always land on his feet or at least somewhere near his feet… because he is Mossy Flood… and he’s from Longford.
A hopeful, positive and real story, ‘Indigestion’ revolves around a man who is shipped off to London when he is 17… goes through bouts of depression, obesity and anger issues… finds and loses love, comes back to Ireland to more misfortune and mayhem and yet there is hope and loads of fun in that story too; there has to be, it’s real and, in reality, laughter and tears are never far from each other, something that’s even more true when you bring stories to the stage.
‘The Handyman’ is a hilariously funny, yet poignant and poetic look at small-town life in rural Ireland. Hugh Spotten is the local handyman; he’s the man who gets things done – caretaker, tea-maker and grave-digger, (with his own crow-bar).. and he’s about to receive an award for his contribution to the community… but now, that’s all about to be taken away from him, as he’s being ousted, but Spotten’s not one for taking it lying down. He has to make the world see sense!
In ‘The Reverend’, Irish preacher Thaddaeus Noone, a non-denominational evangelist, plods around the small towns of Ireland searching for someone to save. He eventually arrives in Angelstown on a foggy night in September. John O’Sullivan is a brute of a man spiralling towards success and failure in the one mouthful. The ‘divel’ has him by the tail. His wife and two sons dangling – the riches of life, left soaking overnight as he searches for the light. There’s only one man can save him now. The Reverend Thaddaeus Noone.
In Week 3 (July 22 – 27), the boys – after performing ‘The Parish’ in over 70 venues nationwide – return with ‘Mary’s Hopes and Dreams’, a delightful comedy about life in a rural community. The story unfolds with a large cast of colourful characters including cattle dealers, tennis players, greyhound trainers, 80’s Pop Stars and the much-loved Two Mary’s! Using Hubcap’s unique brand of visual comedy and characterisation, the audience will delight in madcap moments of slapstick, rap, mime, song, dance, martial arts and swimming!
An exhibition of paintings ‘The Tongue of Solomonescu’ by Irish artist Danny Greenhalgh runs at the Aisling Art Gallery, Ballydehob from July 25-August 4.
Week 4 (July 29-Aug 3) brings something entirely new to Fit-up audiences in the form of a dance theatre production. In ‘Ham Sandwiches and Discipline’ we get to witness the passionate drive of the GAA, fused with dance, disco and comedy. From mammies’ sideline screaming, batty umpires, manic pundits, Tayto eating in Croke Park and teenage club socials, we delve into what makes this sport a national tradition. While injecting this hive of Irishness with campiness and humour we glimpse what growing up can be like in Ireland and what can shape an Irish identity.
The Festival Tent in Ballydehob will host five shows this year from July 26 to August 3.
Dublin Fringe Festival ‘Little Gem’ award winner ‘Baby’ has been described by the Irish Times as “A masterly job…one that so many people should see.” Camilla is 36 and she wants a baby. With dark humour and honest vulnerability, ‘Baby’ delves into baby envy and pretend pregnancies, while journeying into a landscape of fertility clinics and assisted human reproduction. ‘Baby’ is full of unsolicited advice from strangers. ‘Baby’ is seeing a pram in the Lidl middle aisle and having an unexpected cry into a discounted microfibre cloth. ‘Baby’ is all your 30-something-year-old friends having babies but none of them are yours.
In ‘Captain Wagtail’ a time slippage has an eighteenth-century pirate slide into the office of her uptight academic researcher. It takes a series of salty tales and misunderstandings for these two distinct personalities to find a common purpose. Feminism, queerness, a rattling of social constructs, and plenty of rum are imbibed to weave this tale celebrating the power of unlikely friendship, authenticity, and resilience. Historically-researched and based upon the life story of infamous Caribbean pirate Anne Bonny, prepare to set sail on the good ship Captain Wagtail for lands unknown.
Bringing us forward again in time ‘After Luke’ is a darkly comic exploration of a father and son relationship, set against the social, historical and topographical background of Ireland’s second city during the Celtic Tiger economy and the greed-driven frenzy of the property market. The action unfolds in that contentious space where concrete and asphalt meet pasture and stone, and where urban necessity collides with the rural idyll – with devastatingly tragic consequences. As the man says “When two elephants go to war, ’tis the grass gets trampled.”
A “brilliantly balanced enactment of poignant comedy” according to The Irish Time, ‘The Cure’ is set in Cork City. It’s a sleepy Saturday mornin’ in Cork, a man stands on Half Moon Street and just around the corner is Christmas. The hangover fear is starting to dawn. He is waiting for a pub, any pub, to open so he can get ‘the cure’. As he waits, he thinks, thinks and waits, as he stands there his past walks towards him, a Christian Brother, the Christian brother, Brother Keenan. How will he deal with this encounter, he asks himself? We travel back to his childhood spent in a Cork city, redolent with the smell of slaughter-houses, pubs and sweet-makers.
The festival ends on a fun note with ‘The Wobbly Circus’, an act that includes juggling, clowning and plenty of audience participation. They have played to audiences throughout Ireland from small villages and towns to Ireland’s largest festivals including The Electric Picnic, Kaleidoscope Family Festival, The Rose of Tralee and Waterford Spraoi International Arts Festival. Prepare for the unexpected and prepare to be involved!
Tickets cost €15 on the door. Limited availability so please arrive early. Doors open 30 minutes before show start time.
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