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Speakers will include representatives from Chagasque and Grassland agro. Enjoy spa prizes refreshments and meter suppliers on the evening 8 p.m. 7th of February. Monterey Glotel letter Kenny looking forward to seeing you there. For more info visit homeland.ie. Gene Curran on Highland Radio and the time here in Hyden at 26 minutes past nine o'clock and as promised in this duty with me today I have Sean Byrne and Maria to make a minimum from the but drama circle and they're going to be talking about Sean's new play darkness echoing Sean and Maria you are very welcome. Thank you. So it's hard to believe it's a year Sean since we were talking and you were just about to put an incident with Dave Cotter on on stage. I know I know it flew on doesn't it. Yeah Dave went down really really well it audiences seem to really really warm to it serious topic Gene bloody Sunday but we can approach that in a I suppose with a lot of dark humour that that got the the seriousness it came across in a better way. I did really well now we took it out on the on the festival circuit and it won four festivals got to the All Ireland picked up a few words along the way really happy with it but yeah like you say a year a year's pass flown on all right. Fantastic and I suppose the the Donningall Hills are certainly alive with the sound of fingers tapping on keypads with all the new drama like we had Edward Flanagan and the refer players and of course Ciaran with his Jimmy's and Wally matches and the other plays that he wrote as well and yourself now you had Margaret a one woman play not so long ago in the baller with Rachel Rachel Bonner yeah we had yeah no again we were over in the the art centre in Bali Shannon for two nights and we were in the baller for two nights yeah Margaret was about Margaret Thatcher a one woman show she's it's her 10 year anniversary now so we're hoping to bring it back in the April we've been approached by a number of companies in the north to take it up on a mini tour there so we're hoping to get that together I've been talking to Treloch there and then the council about trying to organise some funding for that so hopefully that takes place but it was a joy working with Rachel now because she's a great actress as well and it was a deep subject matter because it dealt with Alzheimer's and addiction as well because that's how she ended up her life Margaret Thatcher but yeah like you say Ciaran and Eddie as well again Eddie was in the baller last night I wanted to see Ciaran show there a few weeks ago with Louise Conahan Louise's cousin of mine so it was great to see her she was fantastic I don't know if you got to see it yourself Jane but it was a powerhouse of a performance and great directing as well from Paddy like you know and you know I saw it was a real team effort now it was it was a great show and Margaret and an incident with Dave Cutter they were this was you had historical facts there to base your play on this to me darkness echoing it's a you're going off on a on a different yeah yeah it is a bit of a pivot yeah I suppose the two of them were political in that sense and you had to you had a structure to stay inside whereas this is very much more of a of a personal story it's a family story it takes place a couple of years after the all-earned final in 2012 which which features in it a little bit as a connection at the father and the son having the story it's an unusual one place can come to you in strange ways this one came out of out of something my son was it was 70 my son was 18 last night we were out for a few drinks and celebrate celebrate our meal with them but when the kids were growing up you go through that phase where you clear out their toys and sometimes they just lie in the garage you know and you're going to give them a charity and one of the toys they had was a wind-up music toy that parents will know this is you wind it up and it's like a little tv video goes round and round and round and I used to play it in the garage in our time when they'd be tipping about you know outside and it was quite eerie after a while and I know there was a local a local family lost a child I'm I thinking god something like this would be heartbreaking and it was from that that the I just imagined that this this man was listening to this toy having lost a child and from that then this the story just just developed out because the play is about a man who has failed to actually deal with that the emotional turmoil that has brought into his life and he's facing another crisis and he's had to deal with both of these now so that's the basis of the play and it is very much not like the other two in the sense that they were political and this is a family drama but it is like the other two in the sense that both all three are very very serious but we do approach them in a certain way and there there is humor used to sort of deflect and enhance certain certain things that happen in the plays so it's it's it's not like it's going to be you know heavy heavy the whole way through like Cotter and like Margaret you find yourself laughing probably where you shouldn't laugh you know that's what I was just going to say to you because the the title of the play darkness echoing is sort of give me the you know the idea of maybe no sort of a dark play but as you say the last two plays or I didn't see Margaret actually but the uh an incident with Dave Cotter there there were some really really humorous parts in it to lift it so there's light and shade in this place yeah exactly uh the quote uh it's from a henie she was henie poem a personal helicon about setting the darkness echoing trying to go back and recapture a feeling that you had and this is what he's trying to do in the play trying to set the darkness echoing and go back somewhere that's that's that's that's I suppose it's uncomfortable for him but he needs to go through that place in order to find some kind of healing enclosure you know and when it when you started how long did it take you to do from beginning to end until the the final product I I tend to write quite quickly and and it was similar to the Cotter play in the sense that both plays were written to be performed uh as two one acts uh before covid and then during covid I decided that uh Cotter needed a second half because what was happening politically was with like the court cases a bit bloody Sunday that were that were in process uh and was during last year's show it was Christopher Quinn said to me well why don't you just have a look at the other play as well because it's hard to put a one act play on if you know what I mean very often was easier to actually get an audience in for it for a longer play so I decided to go and look at it again so in both times I mean I do write quickly so the first uh when it was a one act it was probably written in about three or four days and then when it became a two act it was written again in about um you know three or four days so but that that sounds quite quickly but it was quite fast but that was over a period of maybe two years later when I went back to it um so I do tend to write quickly but then it's it's the recrafting and the reshaping that I write quick but I spend ages in sort of kind of putting a putting a better format on it you know well I admire anybody who acts is to start off with but to write and act and to direct as well so you acted and directed in Dave Cotter and you're doing the same thing now is that a real challenge it can be but it has gotten easier because I think this is the third or fourth time I've done it so the first couple of times were tricky Cotter wasn't too bad in the sense you're trying to visualize it there's only two people on on on the stage it's harder when there's a lot of people on the stage so I don't know how Eddie Flanagan's able to do it I think he's got eight of a cast so to actually think where they're all going you know you might have to bring out a video or something and just kind of sort of shape it up but uh it's tricky but it's it's it's not too bad now I was lucky this time because JC shout out to JC he's he's he's uh setting up our our get-in for today so we couldn't make it but uh there's lots of times where it's me and Mairead or it's me and JC or it's JC and Mairead so when I'm not there he's got eyes on it whenever Mairead's got eyes on it I mean we've got a good team with us as well we've got Brenda on the book and she's able to give us and Bernie and they're able to give us tips as well too and then somebody like Naikrani who always bring in to have a look at my shows now comes on the nail just gives you a couple invaluable things like you know why don't you do that instead of that and why don't you position yourself here instead of that so it's these wee things that the that help shape the show at the end of it you know fantastic and Mairead if you could just move just slightly to your left so I can see your face then on on the screen and I don't want to hit you are a newcomer to the Vok drama circle but not a newcomer to the stage no not at all Jean no I've been on the stage on and off over the years and with castle fun drama groups and then working with my daughter Zara as well to own musicals so but no I haven't made it to the baller until now and it's only up the road I'm glad to be there yeah and say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree so we've had Zara Holmes in several times here with her with her shows so as I said she's obviously taken a lot from yourself thank you yeah busy house all on stage so is it different now when you're working with the Vok drama and taking a play on the circuit to what you were used to before Mairead most definitely like before it would have been really a past time for me and something I did after work and that I you know thoroughly enjoyed but now there is a more I suppose serious edge to it it's a real learning curve for me you know as I was talking to Sean about this recently there's things that I never would have noticed before that were important and with regards to drama and now I'm sort of more tuned into it you know the whole tech area of lighting and sound and that really didn't matter much to me you just learn your lines and go on stage and perform but there's so much more to it like I always knew it was there but you know you weren't just tuned in and it didn't really matter as much where now it does and like it's incredible work that people actually do you know backstage and to have a good team around as Sean said like a shout out to them all they've been fabulous and they're such a necessary part of putting a production together you know and you cannot underestimate what they do so it's been it's been a fabulous experience just to see that so yeah and I suppose every drama group need the as well on song heroes absolutely backstage so you're playing the housekeeper am I right and saying that I'm the carer yes I'm Marie I'm the home help for the father who is terminally ill and I suppose the wayward son returns from London and they're both at odds with one another but I think somewhere Marie sees the vulnerabilities in both men and she tries to maybe expose that so that they can reconcile but she also has her own vulnerabilities that she has to face she has her own story to tell so it really is an unfolding of all three characters stories throughout the course of the play you know in different ways and sometimes very gentle format other times maybe more vigorous and more you know aggressive and well format but yeah it really is this lovely story to see unfold and how these characters do sort of open up to one another in their vulnerabilities and then they're they're only are all flawed are all flawed everyone has their story to tell and their issues to sort out so yeah it's actually a lovely story and Sean it's actually set in Balbuffet when you said and and when you were writing it were there people that you had in mind or real people in the area or people that you might have read about elsewhere well it's it's funny he probably doesn't know this but it's one of the group members is jack one and it's it's set in jack's house it's not on the do with jack's family but I needed a real place to set it in so where they move around and and how the layout of the house is and jack just lives outside Balbuffet in a farmhouse you know so that's the house interestingly when when JC I never told JC this but we had this talk I could about two weeks ago and I told him this and he goes no it's not where it's where it's set in my head it's set in my grander's house which is the other side of Balbuffet up in the hills so it is Balbuffet I mean this place is mentioned there's Haney's mentioned there's mehens mentioned there's you know drumbo woods is mentioned I haven't never done that before in a play but when I was writing it it just became natural that this is where he was going this is what he needed to do so yeah it's very much anchored in in in the locality in Balbuffet and the language and that that's sort of blend of I don't know what you would call it sort of Ulster Scots that we have around that comes out in the writing and in the dialogue so I wanted to play around a little bit with that as well you know and just from what you've been saying I think that people who go to see it they most unlikely can relate to somebody they know or have heard of that that had the same stories as the three characters yeah there there there are three people who who people will I hope relate to they're very relatable you've got the Marie character who who's separated and is angry at she feels her life is somehow stagnated and her her ex-partners has moved on and and there's a frustration there there's the father who who hasn't really come to terms with he's actually come to terms with his illness but he hasn't really come to terms with how he has fallen out with his son and the relationship that he had with his wife at a certain period in his life who was now passed on and then there's the son and who has his own issues with the loss of his own child and his relationship with his father and his own he's got his his own personal issues as well so each of them has I like I said earlier on there each of them are flawed and each of them need to heal and they kind of bang up against each other before they they they find some sort of an old space to talk and it is it is a play that even though it deals with quite dark themes you know it's quite upbeat at the end isn't it Marie to talk about this it has quite a positive ending I think it has out of your thinking oh my god it gets it does get quite dark and get quite serious but it's supposed to speak the human human condition and the way we find a no space to heal you know and it goes to some places that people will find word will read to and and will find sort of uncomfortable but it also goes to places that hopefully people will get some sort of relief from themselves you know of some kind at the end and contentment yeah and Marie big commitment to to go on the circuit like you've been sure rehearsing since it's November and hopefully it'll go on to April May so the first performances now are on Wednesday and Thursday am I right in the valor that's right yeah so and then we're out then I think we've a couple weeks some way and then we're we're in February we're in Newton Stuart yeah the last one was in Tobokori we're going to get festivals mostly around around Ulster and the northwest northwest Tobokori and oh we were going to rush from one as well because I love the theatre in Russia it's a little intimate theatre there's 120 people it always packs out some of these festivals are fantastic you know they have the season ticket holders and they they they just such a warm place to play and we were in rush last year and we've said we're going to have to come back here again it was really really welcoming so they were and it was a really nice theatre so take us on sale at the baller box office for a Wednesday and Thursday night of this week yeah we really recommend it you know yeah well thank you so much for taking time out this morning and every success with your play Sean and if it's anything like last year you'll go the whole way to the all-air and I'm looking forward to seeing you with your debut thank you with the with the baller Maria on Wednesday or Thursday night and the best of luck to thank you very much team thank you cheers