FINAL TOUCHES Joe McNulty playing the bodhrán during rehearsals last week.
Ambitious streaming project to bring festive feeling to a St Patrick’s Day like no other
‘Patrick’, the story of Ireland’s patron saint, is wrapped up and ready to be streamed live tomorrow, St Patrick’s Day, at 7.30pm via www.westporttheatre.com and www.mayo.ie.
Through the ancient art of storytelling using the spoken word, performer and scriptwriter Declan Askin navigates this multimedia production to achieve the ultimate artistic goal – to entertain and enlighten the audience through music, dance, song and cinematic imagery to tell the story of Ireland’s patron saint – Patrick.
Originally produced by the theatre back in 2016, Declan and production designer Paul Dunning found themselves back with pen and lens in hand, editing and fine tuning the show to a smooth 65-minute piece ready for online broadcast.
Similarly, musicians Des Cafferkey and Bartholomew de Boer got busy re-familiarising themselves with their own music compositions with Bartholomew also taking responsibility for ensuring the sound quality of the recorded music will be pitch perfect, thanks to his work and support at The Clew Bay Recording Studio.
A new addition to the musical line up is bodhran and fiddle player Joe McNulty, who is well established amongst the traditional Irish music scene in recent years. A poignant part of the show is a cameo by vocalist Béibhinn Askin, who transports the audience to a time when the Famine had the Irish people firmly in it’s grip – resonating perhaps somewhat with current times, with our entire world being gripped by the global pandemic.
With restrictions limiting the original dancers – Liam Scanlon, Ela Kohen-Murray, Aaron Glancy, Ryan Owens and Liam Taylor – from performing in the new show – Bernadine Cresham-Ball and Louise Cresham of The Cresham Academy of Dance took the reins for the choreography.
They worked tirelessly over two weeks (mostly via Zoom!) with four of their dancers Ciara-May Ball, Hannah Carty, Tim Carty and Adam McCluskey, and what they have produced as a team for the show is nothing short of outstanding – a wonderful collaboration of traditional Irish dance with a clever twist of contemporary literally spun into the mix.
Westport Town Hall Theatre is proud to have been given the opportunity to share ‘Patrick’ with the world by Mayo.ie and Cllrs Peter Flynn, Christy Hyland, Brendan Mulroy and John O’Malley. Compère extraordinaire Dermott Langan will be on hand as MC to introduce the show.
For further details check out www.westporttheatre.com