25.5.2013.
I was listening to Mary McEvoy & Co talk about their touring show, A Box of Frogs, on the radio the other morning and decided that a trip to Thurles next Thursday would be worth my while. I was taken by their feisty attitude towards depression, which after drink, is the scourge of the nation. (Like the chicken and the egg, I don’t know which came first?). I went on line to find out when the show was coming through and noticed that my friend Declan Sinnott was playing tonight (yesterday evening) at the same venue.
I had a guitar to deliver to a friend of mine in Thurles, so I could now kill three birds with the one stone: drop the guitar, catch the band, and book my ticket for Thursday. Everything went swimmingly. I had a reasonably priced cup of coffee in a fine bar, known as The Monk in suburban Thurles, which was the dropping point for the guitar, and made my way to The Source for the show. I sat in the lobby ‘til show time and was a bit puzzled by the audience profile. What was ex Fianna Fail minister, Mary Hanafin doing here? Checking out the noise he makes? Never, not her bag surely? And who were all the others…I sat bemused.
Next thing an MC appeared on front of the drawn curtain and introduced the first of three one-act plays by the Thurles Drama group? Well that explains a lot, I said to myself….no sweet Strat sounds tonight? No beautiful noise? Not tonight Josephine. It happens on the 21st of June. I got both the day and the month wrong…and if that’s not the onset of the big A, then I’m a Chinaman? Now, what’s this I wanted to say again?
For the next two hours I sat back and enjoyed the wonderful efforts of the players. It was their wind-up show of the year…they were all off to the Barbados for a well- earned break? Chekov?, Billy Roche, Julia O’Faolain, Martin McDonagh, et al, were all given a run with the minimum of props. It wasn’t ‘Stratocaster’ magic, but it was magic all the same.
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