Showcase night for a throng of thespians

Pauline McLynn was a little confused. "Oh listen," she told this reporter with a slight air of persecution, "I'll do it." Then, recognising perplexity when she sees or causes it, she said: "You're that teacher who wanted me to talk to those schoolkids, aren't you?" Well, no. Extracting foot from unaccommodating mouth she tried "you . . . don't know any schoolkids I could talk to?".

Then she was preparing to do MC at last night's Irish Times/ ESB theatre awards. She had a list of winners' names tightly clasped in a folder in her hands, while all about her wondered if it included theirs.

Then this reporter came along looking for the inside story on Father Ted. Is it or is it not into its last season? It was being suspended for a few years, she said, to allow her grow into the part of Mrs Doyle. "I'm just too young," she said with a Miss Piggy flounce.

A great fan of Ms McLynn, playwright Hugh Leonard, should probably talk to her, even if he is already dealing with three women in search of a play. They are characters in a new work he has just begun writing. So far it is without a location or a name.

Meanwhile, he will continue to write his Sunday Independent column, which he describes as being like heroin, in that he can't give it up despite repeated attempts.

Gay Byrne has no such problems with theatre. He loves going to good plays and telling people on the radio that they should go because he thinks they will enjoy themselves, but he wouldn't say "it's rotten, don't go".

That's why he would never want to be a theatre critic. Theatre is so insecure he would hate to think that "words of mine" put people out of work. "You could bark nicely," suggested his wife Kathleen Wat- kins. "No," said Gaybo, musing on the critics' lot, it being an unhappy one.

Kathleen, a member of the Arts Council, enthused about the health of theatre all over the country these days, "the wonderful work of young playwrights like Marina Carr, Martin Mc Donagh, Gary Mitchell and actress such as Aisling O'Sullivan and Dearbhla Crotty.

Mary Finan enthused about last night's awards. She was so happy The Irish Times and the ESB were doing this to celebrate what is "world-class theatre" in Ireland. Marie Rooney of Dublin's Gate theatre was proud it had received 11 nominations. She was particularly glad of the occasion as it provided an alternative to funerals as the only occasion theatre people met these days. She talked about the Gate's plans to produce A Long Day's Journey Into Night and A Street- car named Desire later this year.

Another woman glad to be there was Garry Hynes of the Druid Theatre Company, in Dublin last night from New York specially for the awards. Druid have just completed a monthlong run in Sydney with the Lee nane Trilogy which was "a huge success" and on Wednesday night will begin previews of The Beauty Queen of Leenane in coproduction with the Atlantic company, in downtown Manhattan. The previews go on for three weeks.

Meanwhile in Galway, Druid is rehearsing a production of Philadelphia Here I Come. Included in the cast is John Cowley. "I'm really thrilled about that," said Garry.

Actor Owen Roe is happy too. The BBC has decided to do eight more episodes of its prime time Sunday night series The Ambas- sador, in which he played the Irish Minister for "External Affairs". He speculated that if the character was really Minister for Foreign Affairs, "the country would be united or we would have a civil war". Filming of the new series begins in Dublin in June.

Mary McEvoy, Biddy in Glen roe to most of us, was just glad to be there "as an asylum-seeker from the world of commercial TV". She really doesn't know what Biddy is up to at all at all. It was about time she copped on to Miley's carry-on she felt, "did a course in self-assertion, and ran off with a hippy".

For his part, Mick Lally (Miley) and his wife Peggy were settling down to a good night away from all the stresses and strains of marriage on the small screen. He has as yet no theatre plans for the coming summer but was sure "something will happen".

Playwright Jimmy Murphy however is writing a new screenplay. He didn't want to talk too much about it, believing the good old theatre lore that such would bring bad luck.

Just as everything was about to start who came running into the RDS but Harry from the new Jim Sheridan film, The Boxer.

Following a series of superb hard-man performances actor Gerard McSorley is in danger of being attacked on the streets one of these days, but he likes such roles, he said. The complex mixture of violence, conscience, and self-doubt represented a real challenge to him. Doubt, however, is hardly part of Harry's game.