Shane and Victoria on tonights Late Late Show.

[DownInTheGround]

Does Victoria not look and sound a little too much like Janet Street Porter?

[Beisty]

Does Victoria not look and sound a little too much like Janet Street Porter?

[Matt50]

For some reason the damn real player does not work for me from that site, says something about an error.

[Benno]

i like the part where she says
"my book doesnt belong on [any] shelf [whatsoever]"

or maybe i misheard

[MissWalshy]

Shane looks better than Pat!

[Bud Byrne]

Thanks for the Link Macrua.

Shane was in great form..........Loved the hair restyling every few seconds.

That Pat Kenny is one total tool. Absolute Gobshite of the highest order. And he gets paid around €800,000 a year.

[MissWalshy]

Ah he wasn't too bad.


Shane on the same bill as Vanessa! That's not on is it..

ugh.

[Bud Byrne]

Ah he wasn't too bad.


Shane on the same bill as Vanessa! That's not on is it..

ugh.

And Mr. Pussy

[philipchevron]

Ah he wasn't too bad.


Shane on the same bill as Vanessa! That's not on is it..

ugh.

And Mr. Pussy

Mr Pussy (Alan Amsby) was one of the stars of the musical myself and Jim Sheridan wrote (The Ha'penny Place) for the 1979 Dublin Theatre Festival, alongside Gerard Mannix Flynn, Ciaran Hinds, Ronan Wilmot, Johnny Murphy (later Joey The Lips in "The Commitments" movie) and Agnes Bernelle. We gave him a number "It's Just Entertainment" which is interrupted by a gunshot which kills him in mid-song, just as he is about to use his nightclub act to squeal on Mannix's gangboss character. Very Brechtian.

Alan shared a dressing room with Bernelle throughout the run, a little oasis where they shared make up, beauty tips and scandal. In the 80s he opened a shortlived and raucous late night cabaret joint in Dublin with Gavin Friday and Bono.

[John C]

In the 80s he opened a shortlived and raucous late night cabaret joint in Dublin with Gavin Friday and Bono.

...and has always been noted by barstaff for his generosity. Instead of tipping the staff, he used to give us bottles of liquor!

[Beisty]

Instead of tipping the staff, he used to give us bottles of liquor!

Saved time I suppose

[Behan]

Ah he wasn't too bad.


Shane on the same bill as Vanessa! That's not on is it..

ugh.

And Mr. Pussy

Mr Pussy (Alan Amsby) was one of the stars of the musical myself and Jim Sheridan wrote (The Ha'penny Place) for the 1979 Dublin Theatre Festival, alongside Gerard Mannix Flynn, Ciaran Hinds, Ronan Wilmot, Johnny Murphy (later Joey The Lips in "The Commitments" movie) and Agnes Bernelle. We gave him a number "It's Just Entertainment" which is interrupted by a gunshot which kills him in mid-song, just as he is about to use his nightclub act to squeal on Mannix's gangboss character. Very Brechtian.

Alan shared a dressing room with Bernelle throughout the run, a little oasis where they shared make up, beauty tips and scandal. In the 80s he opened a shortlived and raucous late night cabaret joint in Dublin with Gavin Friday and Bono.

Wow Phil. You were a busy man back in the 70's. What kind of music did you compose for this?

http://www.irishplayography.com/search/ ... lay_id=837

[philipchevron]

Wow Phil. You were a busy man back in the 70's. What kind of music did you compose for this?

http://www.irishplayography.com/search/ ... lay_id=837

It was described in one review as Weill-esque, which I suppose it was, melodically at least. I was never happy with the way the music was orchestrated or played by the live band and neither were most of the cast, some of whom were in a state of near-hysterical mutiny by the time I arrived - very belatedly, I have to confess - to supervise the later rehearsals. I had been composing throughout 1979 at my home in London from the lyrics Sheridan provided, mailing the results to him and Gabriel Smyth (the musical director) in Dublin before and during rehearsals. In retrospect, I should have spent more time on the shop floor, but this was long before the days of low-cost air travel, so commuting was not really an option. Besides, the long wait for the release of the Radiators' Ghostown appeared to be drawing to a close any day (after several more postponements, it was finally released in August 1979) and I was not about to let the album out of my sight at such a crucial moment.

By the time I arrived at the later rehearsals it was clear that, whatever trouble the music was in, it was still going to have to take second place to the problems with the play itself. There were moments of genius in Jim Sheridan's play, but neither he nor the director, his brother Peter, were ever able to bring all the elements under control. The show overran by, oooh, several hours it felt like, on opening night. The next day, reeling under not only some terrible reviews but a press conference in the Shelbourne at which Gerard Mannix Flynn, speaking on behalf of the cast, made a lacerating attack on the Sheridans' work practices for the delighted benefit of the international press, we set about ruthlessly cutting the show. But it was still a frustrating business - Jim was always happy to cut a verse here or a chorus there from the music to lose 30 more seconds from the running time, but he would not relinquish the long and exquisite (but dramatically superfluous) Beckettian monologue he had written for Peter Caffrey in the second act.

In the circumstances, people were happy the music was working at all and, relieved that it at least had survived both Mannix's diatribe and the critics, a decision was made that What We Have, We Hold, and the music never did get fixed. I still have audio tapes of both the show in performance and my own crude song demos.

Jim Sheridan, with justification, decided that the critics had gone for him personally, that they were just waiting for the Sheridan Brothers (working class Dubliners with no third level education to "authenticate" them as theatre practitioners) to slip from the Great White Hope Of Irish Theatre pedestal to which they had been elevated by those very same critics. The Ha'penny Place played a major part in Sheridan's decision to up and leave Dublin, settling his young family in New York, a decision which ultimately led to his second career as a movie director. Me, I lived to work in theatre again, but I have to say it was touch and go for a while. I spent the week leading up to the opening night of the show in a state of constant nervous nausea, relieved only intermittently by copious and discreet vomiting.

Showbiz, huh? I thought all of this was quite normal. It turns out it was.

[Behan]

Thanks for that very interesting story. These are shit things that happen to the best of the best. I was just watching the movie In America written and directed by Jim Sheridan. On the Director's Commentary section of the DVD, Sheridan talks about how this movie is basically about his life in a different scenario.

[georgecat]

For some reason the damn real player does not work for me from that site, says something about an error.

Mine was arguing with it too. Must not work in America sniff sniff sniff