Festival first night frenzy

THE Dublin Theatre Festival started this week and with so much on and so many opening nights clashing with each other it threw the opening night set into a quandary. There were four opening nights on Monday; six on Tuesday and three on Wednesday - and that's not counting the fringe shows. But as any compulsive rsvp'er will tell you, there are opening nights and opening nights and despite the culture clash there were really only three to be seen at.

On Monday it was Snowshow and the festival launch in the Gaiety, on Tuesday it was Bernard Farrell's new play at the Gate and on Wednesday the Abbey for Tom Murphy's She Stoops to Folly. Among those who were seen at least two shows were Hugh Leonard (who was at all three), Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins, Louis Le Brocquy and Anne Madden, poet Micheal O Siadhail, the British ambassador Veronica Sutherland and her husband Alex, Norma Smurfit, Eileen Murphy, Temple Bar boss Laura Magahy and, of course, the festival's chairman, Eithne Healy.

Security was tighter than anyone could ever remember outside the Gaiety on Monday for the arrival of John Bruton and his family. Showing just how little politician's children are used here for electioneering (eat your heart out Chelsea) no one in the foyer could recall the last time they saw the Bruton girls at a public event.

In the end it was the perfect show to bring Juliana, Emily and Mary-Elizabeth to and the entire family (including Finola) was to be, seen at the spectacular finale, joining in with the rest of the audience reaching for the falling snow and pushing the giant balls in the air (you really had to be there, it would take far too long to explain).

At the Gate on Tuesday night the audience was unequally divided between those who spent the evening laughing like drains (the majority) and those who just didn't quite get it.

In the interval the talk was about Dublin-born Gemma Craven and her fantastic performance in the play. She has just finished playing the lead in Calamity Jane on tour in Britain and was delighted to be back in Dublin where she's staying in Ballsbridge ("I'm spending far too much time in Roly's," she said delightedly). Her husband David Beamish came from London for the opening night, as did her parents Lillian and Gabriel Craven. Gemma is double-jobbing while she's here - during the day she's up at the crack of dawn to film Johnny Gogan's new film, The Last Bus Home. Desk Cahill was but one of the RTE broadcasters in the crowd.

Maeve Binchy, just back from Frankfurt (see her column) was there with her husband Gordon Snell with Michael Colgan and Marie Rooney presiding at the top of the stairs as always.

At the Abbey on Wednesday the first nighters included the President's brother, barrister Henry Bourke, who travelled from Galway with his wife Barbara for the evening. Novelist Colm Toibin was there, and other writers in the crowd included Anne Enright, Tom Kilroy and playwright Declan Hughes. From RTE there was Eddie Liston with his wife Lucy. John Wilson and Harold Fish of the British Council were also among friends.