There is a certain air of frenzy to the Dublin Fringe Festival as well as that constant fear that everyone is somewhere else, probably having a better time than you. The one occasion that really brings people together (aside from the rousing gatherings in the Guinness Festival Club in Keatings pub and the end-of-festival awards) is the launch show, which this year was A Soldier's Song in the Andrews Lane Theatre.
This was performed by Guy Masterson Productions (one man who is no longer an actor but a production) based on the best-selling book written by Ken Lukowiak about his experiences as a soldier in the Falklands. Ken was in Ireland on the night and professed himself delighted with Guy's treatment of the play. "It's quite funny, isn't it?" he said, sounding almost surprised. Ken, who served in Northern Ireland and Belize as well as the Falklands, was sporting most un-military-length hair. The guest list included Karen Fricker, who this week kicked off her own production, a new publication called Irish Theatre magazine which she co-edits with Willy White. Willy is one of the founders of Loose Canon theatre company as well as a reporter on Later On 2 with John Kelly, while Karen has been making quite a name for herself reporting on the Irish theatre scene in the influential Variety magazine.
Other guests included actress Jeananne Crowley and Jack Gilligan, arts officer of Dublin Corporation, who had just finished overseeing the installation of Patrick O'Reilly's new statue on O'Connell Street - it is a colourful, temporary construction that fires water into the Floozie in the Jacuzzi statue from on high - and it has already been designated "Viagra Falls".