Twenty years after Andrew Strong, Glen Hansard, Angeline Ball and Bronagh Gallagher brought soul to the unsuspecting Irish film and music public, the original cast of The Commitments has reunited for a limited number of concerts at venues around the country.
The film, which grossed almost $15 million (€10.8 million) in the United States alone and sold more than 12 million copies of the soundtrack worldwide, is often cited as one of the best musical movies ever made.
Alan Parker's film chronicled the exploits of a band of young Dubliners as they tried to make their way in a fraught music industry by becoming the world’s hardest working band, at a time of deep economic malaise in Ireland.
Speaking in Dublin today, Angeline Ball, who played Imelda Quirke in the film said: “We thought we were making a small little film with good music in it. We all worked extremely hard but we never thought it would be as big as it has become. It’s almost like a cult now.”
The band will perform four concerts next March at venues in Castlebar, Killarney, Belfast and Dublin.
The cast is hoping to raise over €30,000 for the charity and a donation will be made to the Irish Cancer Society for every ticket sold.
Oscar-winner Glen Hansard, who played Outspan Foster in the film and now fronts The Frames, said he was “happy to be the guitar player again”.
"We've all grown up and we've all gone off and done our own thing and its great to come back and to say 'you know what? this is worth celebrating'", he said. "It's something that was a really good thing in our lives."
Tickets go on sale on Friday, October 15th.
