Skangered

I came across this little curio online a few weeks back. It's a clip from the first film I ever made back when I was 17. Made by YIFM in 2001, Skegs and Skangers was my idea of an Irish teen movie set on the weekend before a bunch of Kilkenny youths go back to school. Unfortunately it had no nudity, bongs or anything else remotely interesting. Mostly people getting in fights with scumbags at shit house parties and being embarrassing with girls. So essentially, it was not unlike my actual teen years.

Here's one scene from it that ended up a bit more finished. It features Mark Colgan, Mick McGrath and Chris Walshe in a shop that no longer exists in Kilkenny:

I can remember none of us had a fucking clue how to make a film and I'm pretty sure the whole thing is nonsensical because there was roughly 30,000 storylines. But it was pretty good hands on experience at the time and I remember it being a lot of fun. The film remains unfinished (or abandoned) and will likely never see the light of day. It had a huge cast that could do with the embarrassment so maybe some more of it may resurface.

I took all the teen characters and moved them on a few years and used them to make another Kilkenny piece, a play called Smitten, which was first performed by Devious Theatre in 2008. A lot of the characters are the same and the story was just as ramshackle. I'll probably do something with the same characters when they're in their 30's as well.

It is very likely that it will involve lots of different stories set in Kilkenny and not make much sense when pieced together.

Devious Theatre's Dario Fo Season

Pretty much all of my blogging activity over the past 8 months has taken place over at the Devious Theatre website as we worked on our Dario Fo Season.

Now that it's over I will (a. return to this lonely neglected blog and (b. find something else to do with my time. Hopefully.

We've wrapped up the entire Dario Fo escapade with a huge feature blog that sums up the entire experience. It's quite a read and a piece of archiving that will stand to us in future times. The entire project has been thus far the pinnacle of my wee theatre life. You can read a lot more about it right here.

No Point Crying Over Spilt Olives...

I had intended to do a lot more updating of my blog through the production of Can't Pay? Won't Pay! and well, I didn't really. Much to my busy chagrin.

Most of my blogging for the show was done on the Devious Theatre website and my own blog hasn't really gotten much love in the process.

The show (and indeed our entire Dario Fo Season) finished on Sunday after 7 months of hard work from the entire Devious Theatre crew. We were delighted with the audiences, the feedback and the reviews, one of which was posted today. You can read it here. And that brings our excursion into the work of Dario Fo to a close.

It was a lot of fun and I'm going to miss it.

Here's some pictures from the show. There's literally gazillions of blog updates about the show over on DeviousTheatre.com so that's definitely the place to go if you'd like to find out more.