ACTORS and more actors turned up for the launch of the Dublin Fringe Festival this week. One couple snogged in the foyer and it was only six o'clock! We hadn't even had our tea! On The Town never actually established if these individuals were actors or not (one doesn't like to interrupt) but . . . but . . . but . . .
Visual artist Maurice O'Connell, from Dublin, was at the launch dressed in scarlet from head to toe. An example of his work is currently on view at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, he offers.
Actor Myles Breen, a Limerick man, waltzed in to the launch at Belgo's Restaurant in Temple Bar, delighted to be taking a break from rehearsals from the play, The Undertaking, in which he plays "a traumatised aromatherapist". It's a tragi-comedy, says director Liam Halligan, of Quare Hawks Theatre Company. "There will be lots of nudity in the play," they promise.
Drogheda comedian Deirdre O'Kane was there too. She will probably have to "bare all on stage", she says, meaning emotions rather than body. Another actor, Paul Hickey, is about to leave for London, to do "a show in the bush", he says. That's Shepherd's Bush, to you and me. Fringe director Ali Curran is buzzing about making sure everyone is being looked after.
Dublin-based comedian Brendan Dempsey, who also played the Lottery man in the zany film, Waking Ned, is there too. Irish people don't recognise him in the street, he says. But Americans do and a lot of Italians, who point and say: "You are heem. . .in the film!"
Actors Mary McEvoy and Michael O'Sullivan were in attendance also. Belfast actor Lalor Roddy was there too chatting to theatre festival director Tony O Dalaigh. Kate Hyland, from Clogheen, Co Tipperary, a member of the DTF team, chatted with actor Clodagh O'Donoghue who was there with husband Jim Culleton, director of the new play, The Plains of Enna.