Tag: theatre

Deborah Frances-White and The Guilty Feminist

Liverpool Irish Festival 2018: celebrating the breadth of Irish culture

Liverpool’s cultural ties with Ireland come to the fore once again as the Liverpool Irish Festival returns, this year with special performances by The Guilty Feminist (in a dedicated festival podcast) and Kíla. We also celebrate a new partnership with Liverpool Literary Festival, the return of the Celtic Animation Film Festival and IndieCork and a new play by Lizzie Nunnery.

Taking place 18-28 Oct 2018 in venues across Liverpool, including Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, FACT, Liverpool Philharmonic, St George’s Hall, the Florrie and the Victoria and Gallery Museum, the programme, curated by Festival Director Emma Smith and partners, explores the theme of ‘migration’. Artists, performers, musicians, writers and filmmakers explore the relationship between cultural identity and place and how Irish identity, in particular, is changing globally, affecting how we understand ‘Irishness’ in the 21st century.

The hugely successful podcast (30m+ downloads), The Guilty Feminist, comes to Liverpool Irish Festival as part of its In:Visible Women programme and for its first visit to the city. Comedian Deborah Frances-White records a live podcast in front of an audience at Liverpool Playhouse, discussing 21st century feminism and the paradoxes and insecurities which undermines it.

One of Ireland’s greatest music acts, Kíla, come to Liverpool Arts Club for a tub-thumping, rip-roaring, freewheeling jig of a gig. Supported by Bill Booth, Kíla’s eight members come from different musical backgrounds, including trad, classical and rock, which blend into the bands furiously energetic sound. It bristles with energy and passion and will be an unforgettable night.

At the Everyman Theatre, Lizzie Nunnery presents her new play with songs, To Have to Shoot Irishmen, exploring the events around the death of Francis Sheehy Skeffington during the Easter Rising in Dublin, 1916. Directed by Gemma Kerr (Hitting Town, Southwark Playhouse) and produced by Lizzie Nunnery’s Almanac Arts, the play runs for three nights (25-27 Oct).

For the first time, Liverpool Irish Festival unites with Liverpool Literary Festival, celebrating the writers, both emerging and established, who continue Ireland’s rich literary heritage. Events include Eamonn Hughes’ fascinating exploration and reflection on his work with Van Morrison, navigating the songwriter’s representation of Belfast. This is a joint event with The Institute of Irish Studies.  

At one of Liverpool’s newest venues, OUTPUT Gallery, an artist will create a new work responding to the successful repeal of the Eighth Amendment of Ireland’s Constitution, granting new body autonomy in Ireland. The exhibition will run for the duration of the festival part of the In:Visible Women strand. 

4* play arrives at Liverpool Irish Festival

After receiving four-star reviews for its London premiere at the King’s Head Theatre, a new play about Irish arranged marriages transfers to the LIVERPOOL IRISH FESTIVAL 2017 for its out-of-London premiere at The Capstone Theatre.

A new act set in Ireland has been written especially for the Liverpool Irish Festival and the production company has teamed up with Merseyside folk duo Jo Pue and John Walsh, who will be playing live Irish folk as the audience enter and during the interval.

This witty and moving new play, set in London in 1956, will be performed at The Capstone Theatre for two nights only at 7.30pm on Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 October. An open Q&A with the writer and cast will follow each performance.

Inspired by the writer’s grandmother who had an arranged marriage, Body & Blood, by Lorraine Mullaney, tells the story of an Irish girl who arrives in London in 1956 looking for her sister, who has run away from Ireland to escape an arranged marriage to a man “with a face like the Turin shroud”. 

But, instead of finding her sister, Aileen meets Jimmy, Uncle Colm’s young drinking and betting partner. Jimmy shows her a new side of life, full of freedom and possibilities. Will Aileen choose this new life or return to Ireland and make the sacrifices required to stay true to her roots?

The cast includes Pamela Flanagan as Aileen, Sorcha Brooks as Pegeen, Shane Noone as Jimmy and Ivan Murphy as Colm.

Here are some extracts from the reviews

“Mullaney’s play is a great framework for a detailed and unique exploration of Irish immigration the UK and the particularly unsavoury choices foisted on young women in this era.” The Reviews Hub

“It was a wonderfully refreshing evening of theatre, where one is moved and also comes away feeling like you’ve genuinely learnt something new and important.” London Pub Theatres

Performance dates and times 

Body & Blood presented by Unclouded Moon Productions at the Liverpool Irish Festival

Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 October at 7.30pm, followed by Q&A with the cast and writer

The Capstone Theatre, 17 Shaw Street, Liverpool L6 1HP

Tickets at £12/£10 + booking fee at www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/body-and-blood

https://www.liverpoolirishfestival.com/events/body-and-blood/