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Back again is the Jameson’s Movies on the Square season. Last years event brought Terminator, Donnie Darko, Shawshank Redemption and Psycho, among others, back to the big screen and this year looks to be just as good.

I’m sadly going to miss The Commitments (with a live band) tonight – it will be showing tomorrow evening too (bandless). But I will really be trying to catch Annie Hall on the 19th July and Some Like it Hot on 2nd August (my birthday, by the way). I’m most looking forward to the closing event though – Monty Python’s Life of Brian – on 22nd August.

(any excuse to play some Monty Python)

Each movie will be screened on Meeting House Square in Templebar and the tickets are…wait for it…FREE!!! They must be pre-booked and are available at the Temple Bar Cultural Information Centre at East Essex Street, Temple Bar.

Here is the full listing as according to Templebar.ie:

Opening Gala
Friday July 4th, 9.30pm
The Commitments and live music from one of Ireland’s best known contemporary bands
Tickets available from June 28th
Please note that the Gates will open at 9pm.

Saturday July 5th, 10.30pm
The Commitments (118m)
Alan Parker (1991)
Jimmy Rabbitte has a plan…to bring soul to Dublin.
Tickets available from June 28th

Saturday July 12th, 10.30pm
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (84m)
Larry Charles (2006)
Kazakh TV correspondent Borat is sent to America to report on the greatest country in the world. However, Borat becomes more interested in the whereabouts of Pamela Anderson. High Five!
Tickets available from July 5th

Saturday July 19th, 10.30pm
Annie Hall (93m)
Woody Allen (1977)
Alvy Singer, neurotic New York comedian falls in love with ditsy singer and photographer, Annie Hall.
Tickets available from July 12th

Saturday July 26th, 10.30pm
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (94m)
Jay Roach (1997)
A 1960’s secret agent is brought out of cryofreeze in the 1990’s to oppose his arch-nemesis, Dr Evil. Bringing his own brand of free love to the ‘90’s, Austin Powers is anything but subtle. Groovy, baby!
Tickets available from July 19th

Saturday August 2nd, 10.30pm
Some Like it Hot (120m)
Billy Wilder (1959)
When two musicians witness a mob hit, their only way out of the state is in an all female band disguised as women!
Tickets available from July 26th

Saturday August 9th, 10.00pm
Stranger Than Fiction (113m)
Mark Forster (2006)
An IRS auditor suddenly finds that his entire life is the subject of narration only he can hear. Harold Crick isn’t ready to go. Period.
Tickets available from August 2nd

Saturday August 16th, 10.00pm
Little Miss Sunshine (101m)
Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris (2006)
The dysfunctional Hoover family take a cross country trip in their VW bus, chasing 7 year old Olives dream of being crowned ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.
Tickets available from August 9th

Closing Gala
Friday August 22nd, 9.30pm
Life of Brian (94m)
Terry Jones (1979)
Brian is born on the original Christmas, in the stable next door. He spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah. A motion picture destined to offend nearly two thirds of the civilised world. And severely annoy the other third.
Tickets available from August 16th

YOUR FREE TICKET INFORMATION

All Jameson Movies on the Square events are FREE TICKETED events.

Tickets can be collected in person from the Temple Bar Cultural Information Centre at 12 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Temple Bar Cultural Information Centre opening hours
Mon-Friday 9am – 5.30pm
Saturday 10am- 6pm
Sunday 12noon -3 pm

Wednesday night was both fun and educational. Fun, because I was around friends who did not judge my intelligence (or lack thereof) and educational because I learned so many new things.

Firstly, did you know that there was a major footballing tournament on last week? Me neither! It seems Spain beat everyone else in Europe to win the Euro2008 World Championship Football Cup. Well done to them.

Also, I was pleased to discover that, including Wednesday, there have been 184 days in this year so far. Although this knowledge was very useful two days ago and was reasonably relevant yesterday, I think from today onwards the information becomes a little extraneous.

It was an important lesson for everyone at the table to find that the word deface and defecate are not synonymous – as in “Lottie, stop defacing the answer sheet” is somewhat different to “Lottie, stop defecating the answer sheet”. Thankfully, she soon stopped doing both.

Table Quiz

On Wednesday night, we were at the Diet of Worms Table Quiz in the Garda Club. They promised a night of fun and they delivered. The night began as most of my nights seem to do, with a few beers and odd chatter. Why on earth we were discussing the evolution of a bogger into a metropolitan is beyond me. Hosted by the very funny Orla and Vincent of Dublin Stories, the evening kicked off with the General Knowledge round. Having spent the past week researching the history of the Irish Army, I was very disappointed to find out it was not that type of General of which that knowledge was required. We didn’t do supremely well in that round. Although, they did give a bonus point for each email address we put on the top of our answer sheet. We discovered later that there was only a maximum of four bonus points available for this though.

Rounds such as Current Affairs, Sports and Comedy had us scratching our heads. We were slightly better at the Music round and the TV and Film round.

All in all, Anthony, Lottie and myself had a lot of fun and I’d like to wish Diet of Worms all the best in their journey to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

If you want to see the Wormery before then they’re doing three FREE preview shows upstairs in Doyle’s on the 16th, 17th and 18th of July at 6.30pm each night.

The group blog, For Nine Pounds, was one of the first blogs I frequented when I began my blogging journey less than four months ago. The great advantage of the group blog format is in the variety of opinions it offers up, the diversity in the posts and in the instant feedback from other members. The group happily discuss anything and everything, from politics to TV, from new jobs to concerts they’ve attended. There is rarely a day goes by without some new topic to entertain and excite.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to be part of 49£ and while it is an honour to be greeted so openly by them, I’m not really sure what I can add to the group. I’m going to try my best to add something lively and interesting to their discussions and we’ll see if they let me stay. 🙂

Feel free to drop on over to 49£ and leave a comment if there’s anything that grabs your interest.

Urf is a planet where strange things happen. Created by Phil Selby (The Rut), Mike Jacobsen (the awesome See Mike Draw) and Adam Burke (blogless), it’s a combined cartoony thing and it’s damn funny.

Check out some more here.

According to the Devious Theatre Company:

The Devious Theatre Company was formed in May 2006 by some theatre loving Kilkennyians who had a desire to bring fresh and different works to the local stage.

After our first meeting, our objective was crystal clear: Accessible and alternative theatre for young people. And by young people, we meant the people who frequent cinemas, pubs and gigs on the weekend and who mightn’t even consider heading along to catch a piece of theatre. The people who consider theatre to be a little academic or a little too boring or even too expensive, coonsidering you could spend that money on a few pints. We wanted to show how exciting theatre could be, how worthwhile an endeavour it is and most of all, how entertaining it is.

And as for the people who already loved theatre? Well, we wanted to stage productions that would excite them. Productions that are new, fresh, different and, well, devious.

Last week, they staged a highly ambitious version of Irvine Welsh‘s novel Trainspotting, which looks at drug use and depression in the poverty stricken Scotland of the 1980’s. When I first heard that Devious Theatre were putting this on, I was both excited (at the prospect of seeing one of my favourite movies transfered to the stage) but also very nervous (I didn’t see how they could possibly pull off some of the more harsh and difficult to watch parts of the novel). I was concerned about how they were going to get around showing people shooting up, I was worried about the scene in which a baby dies, I was terrified of the prospect of seeing Spud throw his faeces covered sheets open to the room. I made sure to book tickets and gather a group to come with me.

A couple of people in our posse had never seen Trainspotting before, nor had they read the book, so I was curious to see how they would perceive it too. Thankfully, we were all completely overwhelmed by the production. The clever set (the repeated use of one couch, moved around the stage to change the seen, worked brilliantly) was not too sparse but not heavy on props, which helped the audience to focus on the actors. The lighting was very effective, a tribute to the excellent Watergate Theatre and to the lighting director, Gerry Taylor.

The music was one of the most impressive things in the show, however. As important and pivotal as it was in the movie, Devious Theatre have put their own slant on it and made it integral to the success of the show. Three moments of perfection stick out. The introduction of uber-drugdealer Mother Superior to the Beatles’ Happiness is a Warm Gun ensured the character was seen as epic and near iconic (as he was to Renton and his compadres). The brilliantly frightening scene when Begbie drags Renton out of his rehab malaise singing Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere (incidentally, this song seems to be following me this week. It was playing in the bar on Thursday evening; it appeared during our 90’s music night; then it was in the play and again at the aftershow party. Yesterday it was on the radio at some point in the afternoon. Strange!). Probably my favourite scene in the entire play was the moment Tommy shoots up for the first time. It’s sad, it’s depressing, contained in one tiny corner at the front of the stage. All the while Portishead’s Roads is playing, punctuating the loneliness of the moment.

Music, direction, set design, lighting – all this aside, the true measure of this play’s quality was in the acting. These supposed amateurs deserve a multitude of awards for their performances. A cast which shared some roles, the eleven strong troupe, directed by Niamh Moroney and John Morton, were nothing short of brilliant.  Morton, in addition to his acting duties, played Sick Boy. Stephen Colfer played a quirkily pathetic Spud, while the iconic Mother Superior was played by Paul Young. Maria Murray, as Alison, had one of the toughest moments on stage where she lost her child during a drug fueled stupour. Tough to watch, it pulled the heartstrings.

But the three performances which stood out were Niall Sheehy’s Begbie, Ken McGuire’s Tommy and Ross Costigan’s Mark ‘Rent Boy‘ Renton.  Niall‘s performance was nothing short of terrifying. As the addicted-to-violence Begbie, he scared everyone he met. When he moved into the audience shouting (not singing) Road to Nowhere, it was one of the high points of the play. As I said above, Ken, in the role of Tommy, was the focus of my favourite scene of the play. It was depressing to see this formerly healthy sporty guy descend into a drug addled and then disease addled junkie. Very sad.

But the star of the show was Ross as Renton. He is in almost every scene and nails every moment. His dialogue is tough but he delivers it perfectly, especially the famous ‘Choose Life‘ speech which actually made my hairs stand on end. His incredible mix of brutal emotion with stark comedy epitomised Welsh’s novel. Ross, my hat goes off to you – you are too talented. Here he is, in character, after the play:

An incredible night overall, it’s is just a shame it didn’t have a longer run. I would have returned and I would have dragged dozens of people with me. Well done to everyone who was involved and I’m already looking forward to Devious Thetare‘s next production, an original piece, by John Morton, chronicling life in Kilkenny. See you in Kilkenny in August.