 Football League. I'll also catch up with ATU and ladies football manager Maxi Cohn. All this and a bit more just after 70 News this Monday on Highland Radio and podcasted on HighlandRadio.com. The DL Debate with Sister Sarah's Laddercanny serving food you'll love in Sarah's kitchen. Radio, your voice, your station. And you're very welcome back and as promised joining me in the studio tonight I have three members of the Liverpool players. Edward Flanagan and Dee Dee Dipper and Arthur McGarregal. Folks you are very welcome. Thank you Gene for having us. Thank you Gene. So Eddie, you have been an actor with the Liverpool players, you have directed plays with the Liverpool players but now you've taken pen to paper and you've written your own three-act play. So tell us how did that all come about? What inspired you to do that? Well good question. I suppose I was a player at some point or I've always been tabling and writing of some form of nature. It came out really because we had bought our casting plays in the last four or five years and not getting actors in and so that will allow you to play for actors that we do have. And we have some very talented guys like Dewey Left, Dee Dee Dipper, Alwyn Diver, Gilbert Young, Emory Kilpatrick to name a few. And so I thought well let's play for those guys, a play that can cast and I suppose that's where it came from. Fantastic. So when the idea comes to you from first word on page to finish product, how long did it actually take you? I would have wrote the play in probably about 10 or 11 months and I was really curious of I wanted to write about tabling taboos which were kind of a taboo or you don't know what I would always talk about and this topic was about inheritance going badly wrong. We've all been involved. We're all, I mean here's somebody who's who's been involved in a family crisis of such where there's a will being disputed or something like that and so it's not involved directly, indirectly. So I thought about a topic we could talk about because we don't talk about it very often and I came from there and it was really kids then times I would have had a burst of creativity, would have gone mad for maybe two weeks, then took a week off, maybe a month off, then I'd be in the car driving along and I might have seen something. Yeah, that's what we're going to know next with that. Then right again, then slowly the arc really began to evolve and about halfway through I could see where it was going and then financing the play was quite hard because you're almost there and then you think when I was give this play over the line, but you can't rush it. That takes time for the SOA to evolve naturally and that took about let's say nine, ten months. And you were saying there about inheritance so just give us a wee idea of the storyline from the start of it and you sent me a copy of it and it's over three days is it or there's there's three things to it but it's a very short period of time. And so for two days yes there's a prologue which is before midnight and that's where the play starts and that gives us an idea of what the play is about. It's a young couple, a grandson and his girlfriend talking about the the emerald farm being handed over and then we cut into the to the following evening or meet more with the my characters the protagonist. So it's really it evolves around two siblings who are one is looking for the the inheritance the farmer question. The father's quite old, he's quite ill and he may pass away very soon and the other sibling returns home as well. Not so much for the inheritance but more for a reason of love, of looking for understanding and but the two siblings have never got on and so it obviously employs from there when you have greed, sibling rivalry and distrust and there's a lot of characters who get involved. There's there's a farm helper so you know if they're there or they're two bob and so the story unfolds around these two siblings and the father. And when you were actually writing this did you have individuals in mind from people you'd have acted with or directed before or did you sort of wait to the the reading and then and get your cast from that? Well I wrote the play for this mountain right here Arthur McGarregal and Leo McBride that's two guys who had mine when I was writing this this play and then as the cast evolved it did it to my left one to it and Gilbert came into it all in a bit after that and so really for our friend Leo, Leo McBride was my school drama teacher so and I always thought well you know these guys they're getting towards the end of their acting days did I say that? And I thought it would be quite nice to to append a piece for them. Fantastic and how many of a cast have you got Edward? It's a cast of eight. Although there's well there's a cast of nine but there's one silent actor in which the audience can can tear it to them themselves so it's really eight working actors. And you are directing and you're acting yourself do you find that difficult or have you have you mastered now at this stage? I don't believe you'll ever master that. It is very difficult. It wasn't the plan that I acted in it just to direct but as as it evolved I did step into it and yes it is very hard anybody who's done it. I know Sean Byrne the what does it Keir and Kelly and LMDG it is a hard role to master he put so much to watch working with actors working with individual characters some some very very strong characters he wanted to go their way you're involved in the set design set balling the the tech the sound the lights there's so much there to manage and not just that of course then your own lines and it's very hard to to direct a play when you're actually in it because you just can't see it and the the title of the play one elephants collide now that that and train me where did you come up with that as a title? Well I know you alluded to the african proud verb about when the elephants fight and the grass gets tumbled and that's one I wasn't actually aware of but it is very very apt but really it's it it comes with the fact that when the elephants the elephant in the room essentially and the the point of making is that we're probably all the elephants in the room that what is normal you know when a person stands out well why in your opinion do they stand out and why do you my call on that you know so what I'm saying is we are probably all the elephants in the room we're all we're all normal and the elephants collide they're coming out of their mclash and Arthur you're the club chairman and now you have been a stalwart of the group for for many many years the group was around since the 1950s so I don't think you might have been acting in the 1950s but you've been there for a long time Arthur well it just seems like a long time um the first I think the first time I played with liver players was um Philadelphia here I come and that had people like Kieran Kelly and Paddy McBrady and people like that that and probably the most memorable performance we ever did because we got to Athlone and uh it's easy for me to say I thought we were brilliant I thought we were superb I thought everybody in the cast was superb but we came across a legitimator who will remain nameless just in case he's still out there and he slaughtered one particular member of our cast and I won't name who that person is but anybody listening will readily identify who that was uh to such an extent that I think it just ruined the confidence of that particular actor and I'm not sure that I was just thoroughly undeserved criticism from an upstart adjudicator and I suppose really when you go on the circuit you're at the mercy of the adjudicator it's like one man's uh food is another man's poison as I say and somebody could love it or or or love it and you have to sort of run and bear it but it's it's hard when you know that other people have loved it well the thing about it is you have to accept it and I know that there are people in Liverpool players who are of the opinion that I don't readily accept it but you do bear your soul you give of your very very best now I have no objection to any adjudicator in the private adjudication at the end of a performance in private confidentially saying look that was terrible you were rubbish you were bloody awful but to have an adjudicator on a stage and I have seen at least two adjudicators do this ridicule people who've spent the winter rehearsing a play doing their very best okay if their best isn't isn't good enough but to to to tear shreds of people like that in public I think is an absolute disgrace and I've pressed afterwards I will tell you who those adjudicators are but in spite of that one adjudication and I've prepared all on to the one that all are in three times have been in the final several times have won so many festivals so it's a well-established group is it refreshing to get to perform a brand new play I suppose going to the library of Freeland all the the stalwarts off the off the drama it really is it's it's it's something else I had to check back on this Liverpool players have only ever done one play that was in original but it was back in 1962 and it wasn't a festival play it was well received locally but they didn't take any further than locally so this is a very very well obviously a new play but it's the first time Liverpool players have taken a new play onto the circuit and you know we don't know what to expect we really don't know what to expect but you know when I first saw the play when I first read the play I was horrified because there were so many typos in it and then Eddie decided that what I should do first is to actually proofread so when I read it after it had been proofed after we'd proofed it it was it I mean I would acknowledge it's a very very good play there are lots of levels and characterizations and really really interesting and I think anybody coming along will will find a a good story and b an entertaining story and see they will be entertained and intrigued fantastic so what part do you actually play yourself in the play well this is the scary bit as well because he said to you a moment ago that he had me in mind when he wrote the part now the part that I'm playing is a drunk agricultural good-for-nothing layabout who can't find his own way home spends most of his nights in the ditch in the hay and you begin to wonder yourself well cranky maybe Eddie doesn't hold me and switch highest no it's a great part it's uh at my age maybe a part bigger than I should have taken on but now I've taken it on I hope I do it justice and uh I'm really looking forward to seeing and or they're getting a reaction from an audience from doing it fantastic and Dee Dee again you weren't around you weren't even born in the 50s but you're the secretary and you've been acting with the players for a number of years now so um how long have you been with them I have been with them since 2010 and Kelly had asked me to come on board to help do the sound for the production of Philadelphia here I come and it was an absolute joy getting to sit at the sound desk operating the sound first and getting to watch that production over and over again every night and I was hooked from then on so I think this is my 10th production with the with the group either on stage or off stage and it's just been an absolute joy being with the group and you're a part in the play what part do you play I play the part of Piper Rose she is the granddaughter in the family and she she likes to find her things in life she's a bit of a snob but she wouldn't be the brightest crane in the box either she uh she runs around the house she cares a lot for her grandfather and for her mother she would be making tea making sandwiches doing fries cooking for everybody making sure everybody's well fed and catering for them as well so it's a fun part to play now I have to say and it's a big commitment being on the circuit because you're rehearsing I'm sure since the end of September and then if everything goes according to plan you're really committed to late April early May so it's a big undertaking it's a huge undertaking yeah absolutely like during the winter months you may be rehearsing two three times a week and which is great now to help pass those long winter nights um but uh when it comes to festival time when you're performing you could be rushing from work to head down to as far as cavern to perform and then making your way back down for work the next morning it's it can be a busy busy time but you're running on adrenaline and the crack is brilliant I have to say fantastic so all the months of hard work Edwards now have paid off or are about to pay off so you're taking to the stage now in the baller is it this week uh come in some of the 5th of February at this night week then yes uh-huh and uh so that'll be our first performance we're looking forward to that greatly to live audience and um let's say it's a great theater as well so it's we're we're excited about it and then we're in remelton town hall the following is on the last 19th of February yeah 19th February so um and then we go on our first festival date then we'll be Newton Stewart on February the 28th and we have that followed by seven more festivals so if we just add on what what did you say there I mean it really is if we get to if we go the full cycle of this it really is six months off your year where you are rehearsing at least twice a week at this stage we're also rehearsing in fact we're back from rehearsal today from a fairly long rehearsal today from 11 this morning 11 o'clock this morning yeah you know and so the the the the desire discipline involved is really is really something and if I could interject here not only are we rehearsing since 11 o'clock this morning but this is actually Eddie's birthday oh well a happy birthday to you happy birthday to you we've been singing this all day we'll not we'll not we'll not ask what age you are Eddie but many many happy returns of day and I'm sure that might be a wee jolly when you go home with Eva but anyway it's set in the 21st century even though there's 19th century traditions you were singing that in the little log you sent me yes yeah yeah so I mean it's a it's a it's a a modern play and but of course as we're all aware of you know when it comes to to grandparents or to parents they are faced out their ways sometimes and the way the things they carry it out I don't always I go towards logic sometimes so yeah so steeped the anchor here is that there's as you say an ancient 19th century tradition that's holding holding it back possibly and that causing the my conflict you know but yes a modern piece modern piece well it's in the best of luck with it and I hope to get to see you some stage so the baller next sunday night is the first performance and then remelton and then the circuit so thank you so much Arthur and Edward and didi for taking time out and all the best and all the best with future writing as well thank you very much thank you it's been a pleasure