Virtual Methodist

I've never seen a stage production of Shaw's St. Joan before, I did a dramatised reading of it when I was 19 at about 2 o'clock in the morning as part of a sponsored play reading... and I have seen Otto Preminger/Graham Greene's somewhat bloodless film many years ago (probably on a rainy Saturday afternoon when there was no decent sport on Grandstand and it was showing on BBC2)... As such I was not awake to the powerful resonances that this play has for the world in which we now live... But the production in Belfast's Lyric which I saw last night on it's first night brings them alive... The director Jimmy Fay and adaptor Philip O'Sullivan have radically cut the play from a dramatis personnae of around 22 to one that could be handled by a cast of 7... However, they largely kept the structure and language of Shaw's play, choosing not to do it as an ensemble/agitprop piece a la the recent National Production, but they did loose the epilogue with its d...

I had one of those incidents this week of remembering something that didn't happen. Don't fear, I haven't developed false memory syndrome, although I am sure we have all experienced a variety of that where an event when we were young has been talked about so vividly that we are convinced that we actually remember it ourselves even though it is unlikely (or perhaps even impossible as we weren't actually there)... No, in this instance I was convinced that I had been to the previous production of the Lyric's "Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme" only to find out subsequently that I couldn't possibly have been as I wasn't in the country at the time! However, I know I DID see a production of it (and I don't think it was the Abbey's original production in Dublin) before early 1987. I also know I didn't see it alone, as I was never sad enough to go to the theatre on my own, so if there is anyone out there who accompanied ...

Arrrggggh!!!! I have been reduced to my most incoherent, working class roots by a combination of patronising elitism and thorough-going Philistinism... So much so, here is my second post in a day! A few weeks ago I had a discussion with a colleague who was trying to argue that we should eschew being "too arty" and using poetry in a particular context for fear that it might alienate people from working class (and especially working class protestant) areas... I think we got our disagreement sorted out, but there is definitely a sense there that "the arts" are for the middle and upper classes and not for those in working class estates. Then you have William Humphrey's ill-informed comments on the Lyric and Mac Theatres saying that they offer little "tangible benefit to the people in Ballygomartin, Ballymurphy or Ballymacarrett," and that "The concept of 'the arts' is not something which the Protestant working-class community in this city b...

Last night  my wife and I went to the f*****g Lyric Theatre, and it wasn't to see Pride and Prejudice the f*****g Musical on the main stage, but something much more f*****g earthy in the Naughton Studio space: Re-Energize by Gary f*****g Mitchell, directed by my mate Conall f*****g Morrison with music by John and Damian O'Neill from the f*****g Undertones. It picks up the story of the members of a f*****g wannabe punk band 30 years after Mitchell's earlier play "Energy" was set. I didn't see that production back in 1999 in the Playhouse in Derry, where this production also originated. But the previous year I first came across Gary Mitchell's work in another collaboration with Conall Morrison when I took a night out from Methodist Conference to take a ministerial colleague to see their play "As the Beast Sleeps" in the bowels of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin... The play was still in a fluid state at that time and one of the discussions betwe...

We tried a number of times earlier in the run to get to see "The Man Jesus" with Simon Callow at the Lyric Theatre, but in fine Campton fashion, only managed to see it on the last night. Given the show is now over I won't offer any sort of comprehensive review, except to say that I enjoyed it, but was not bowled over by it. The sparse staging and lighting allowed the audience to focus on Callow's performance which offered differing perspectives on the life and death of Jesus from various men and women around him. The mission-hall-type wooden seats which Callow constantly shuffled throughout the performance were sufficient to suggest the temple clearance or the Last Supper. Callow's range of accents and characterisations were superb... his Billy Connolly-esque John the Baptist and his Ballymena Bible-belt disciple were particularly appropriate (even more so given this was Northern Ireland and the Big Yin was actually performing in the Waterfront Hall last night)...

This is a veritable landfill site of linkdumps this morning... Read them all and you could be still sitting here tomorrow. So I'll just group them under appropriate (?) headings and keep my comments to the minimum: HOMOSEXUALITY & SAME SEX-MARRIAGE In the week that has seen England and Wales make the first legislative steps towards the recognition of same-sex marriage there have been a number of stories that have caught my eye... An article by Alice Arnold on her relationship with TV sports presenter Clare Balding, and why the term "marriage" is important to them... A piece by Michael Bird , prompted by an "ex-gay" conversion story and the response to it, asking how those who advocate "Queer Theology" (an unhelpful term I believe), relate to those who call themselves "ex-gays"... In response to the same story Scot McKnight points to some research that suggests that such conversions are not only real but produce statistically...

OK, I've slept on it and let my annoyance subside slightly... but for the little it is worth, here's my opinion on the Lyric's current (until the 24th November) production of Macbeth ... It's dull but not dreadful. I suppose I was feeling a bit more vitriolic last night after because it is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays and it is one of the most accessible and adaptable, yet the sheer lack of energy in last night's production was palpable. About 25% of the audience left at the interval... I watched as taxi after taxi pulled up at the door, and by that stage I felt like getting in my car and following them, but wanting my value for money I stayed. And I'm glad I did, because the best scenes and speeches were in the second half, but even they were not enough to stir me. The pre-production publicity promised much, with its plastic-mac clad witches, and sub-way backdrop, and talk of the Northern Irish resonances, with bloody politics and dynastic...

Just had a very relaxing 24 hours or so, in between what was a busy and traumatic week and what is likely to be a busy and traumatic week... I had planned to take a 3 day weekend to celebrate our anniversary with my wife... But various crises have conspired to curtail that... However, we did manage to get to the Lyric Theatre's production of "Playboy of the Western World" last night... This was particularly appropriate as it was through a student theatre company in Edinburgh that we were both members of that we got together... and the director of this production, Conall Morrison, was another member and good friend... although his speech at the wedding reception will live long in the memory... especially the memory of Sally's family who thought he was suggesting that I should actually have married another friend, the actress Ali White... But that's another story (which I'll tell some day over a flagon of mead.) But anyway, it was good to get out and exercise...

Aberarder, Aberayron, Llangranog, Llangurig, Abergorlech, Abergynolwyn, Llandefeilog, Llanerchymedd, Aberhosan, Aberporth... With this tongue-twisting recitation, or incantation, of Welsh place names, the fantastic Francis Hardy, Faith Healer, begins a harrowing theatrical journey through his story... An exploration of fact, fiction and truth, faith, hope and despair, surrounding Hardy and his unpredictable gift (or was it a curse?); exercising (or exorcising) it in a "ministry without responsibility." For those who don't know the play, the story is told in a series of 4 monologues by Francis, his "partner" Grace and "manager" Teddy... I won't spoil the story except to say it isn't exactly a comedy... although it's not without it's moments of humour. 23 years ago I had the privilege of playing Frank in an Edinburgh Fringe production, with the woman who went on to be my wife as the director... But it was intere...

Its been quiet here in the world of Virtual Methodist for a wee bit... Largely because the real world has been more than a little hectic... But did get time to go to see the Lyric Theatre Company's latest production in their squat at the Elmwood Hall. I'm not a expert on Moliere by a long chalk but I enjoyed the bawdy production of The HypochondriacT (sic) last year, with the same team of translator/adaptor David Johnston, director Dan Gordon and lead Andy Gray, and so I thought I would go back for second helpings this year, with their take on the Miser. Sadly, according to David Johnston, it hasn't been getting great audiences, and he thinks that the fact it's a Moliere has been putting Belfast audiences off coming. But it shouldn't, because its a good night out, even for those, like me who don't know their Molieres from their Molly Malones. As with last year's production Johnston has kept to the broad structure of the original play, but has transposed it f...