Sitting impatiently in the corner checking his pocket-watch every few moments, Vivienne awaits his co-star. Every creak of the door draws his attention as he hopes that the face to appear will be Cecily’s… Instead all that greets him is yet another audience member eagerly searching for their seat in the atmospheric surroundings of Bewleys Café Theatre. It isn’t long before the room is packed to capacity and, like Vivienne, everyone is waiting for Cecily to appear and the show to begin. Such is the unique, engaging nature of this year’s Show in a Bag productions at ABSOLUT Fringe that everyone truly feels Vivienne’s, albeit entertaining frustration at Cecily’s tardiness, and the show hasn’t even begun yet… where could she be?
All of a sudden the lights dim and bursting through the door comes Cecily, just in time to jump clumsily into a dance number in preparation for the duo’s big comeback special… her heart is not in it, and Vivienne knows it even before the choreography comes crashing to a disastrous halt.
Vivienne and Cecily have toured the world and wowed audiences with their… unique… brand of musical entertainment. After some time apart (Involving some hilariously bizarre equine escapades with foreign royalty) the duo are returning to the stage to rekindle the fire that had them pacifying spear throwing tribesmen all across the globe. But where did it all go wrong? Is the prospect of a real job for Cecily too much to resist? and has Vivienne really secured the big comeback show he has been going on about for so long, or is it all a cunning plan to keep his co-star interested and avoid his own personal daemons?
You are led to wonder how a full scale musical could really take place in the quaint back room of Bewleys Café Theatre. Mere centimetres from impressive high kicks and dizzying jazz hands sit innocent punters sipping wine and coffee, yet the effect grows and grows as Denis Clohessy’s music somehow runs that fine line between full scale razzmatazz and bohemian garden-shed poetry reading… it is indeed a fine mix. Yet he pulls it off impressively and in the space of 40 minutes we are brought on a whirlwind tour of the emotional musical mix that makes up Cecily and Vivienne’s relationship. From the burning desire to change the face of entertainment forever, to the cold and heartbreaking reality of show-business that is ready to stamp out any spark of hope that might glow in their hearts, we engage with our two actors as their aspirations, ultimately their greatest faults, lead them down a path of failure.
Whether they manage to avoid that disaster, well that is for you to find out. However along the way their punchy comic conversations are set out by an accomplished script that draws laughs for its traditional brand of hard hitting slapstick comedy, something not far from His Girl Friday and the other screwball comedy scripts of the 40s. A tirade of one liners delivered with the sort of timing that comes natural to Donncha O’Dea and Camille Ross had many in the room gasping with laughter in what was a very enjoyable journey into the world of a dysfunctional musical duo.
I should hope that, as the name suggests, this show will be packed into a bag (or pocket) and brought to more events around the country and further afield. It has exited ABSOLUT Fringe with a nomination for the Little Gem Award at the festival and should continue to wow audiences into the future.
If you have the chance to enter the world of Cecily and Vivienne take it… in fact dive right in and enjoy every moment. Unless of course you are an intense lover of horses… in which case you may need a harness. 
Interview
We were lucky enough to catch up with actors Camille Ross and Donncha O’Dea and director Ronan Phelan who’s show Pocket Music starts this Tuesday in Bewleys Café Theatre as part of ABSOLUT Fringe.
After years away from the footlights, lifelong friends Vivienne and Cecily are going back on the road. Locked into rehearsals, they spend their days perfecting their latest and greatest showstopper. But before the curtain rises will their routine fall apart?
Pocket Music, written by Gavin Kostic and Denis Clohessy (Music) is part of the Show in a Bag production. Collaborating with Fishamble they have created what is sure to be a hugely entertaining look at the pressures of perfection and the warped reality of the Musical. While dealing with a multitude of themes and ideas they have managed to condense it down into a powerful and engaging 50 minute performance in the intimate surroundings of Bewley’s Cafe.
The trio seemed full of excitement when we met and brimming with enthusiasm for the show. We got to grips with the ideas behind the production, their relationship with Denis Clohessy and Gavin Kostic, how they have enjoyed the process as part of Show in a Bag.
I began by asking them about the general idea behind the production…
Donncha O’Dea: They sent out this curatorial call, people applied with ideas that Gavin Costic from Fishamble would write the text. So our whole approach then was to put forward a whole load of questions about music; what type of music do you like? Do you ever listen to your ipod and see people walking and think can they hear what I am listening to?
Camille Ross: Or what if you’re life was kind of like the start of Austin Powers!?
[laughs]
DO’D: So it came from that process… and then I am big into musicals…
CR: …as is Ronan who directed us on another show we worked on which wasn’t a musical but when we worked on that we realised “oh he is a musical freak – he is the one!”
So… I was looking at the blurb about your show in the festival booklet…
CR: It is about a million miles away from what that says, we wrote that so far in advance…
DO’D: That was the initial idea and everything developed from that, but…
CR: … It’s great to have an influence and all but Ronan kept saying to us to stop worrying about the topic because you’ll just be going in circles – trying to put a square peg into a round hole type thing…
DO’D: But we do have a new blurb on the website so you can check that out now.
Well what I was going to ask you about was the pressures of perfection that was mentioned in that blurb…
CR: Oh well that is the new idea!
OK so that is what intrigued me because that must be pressure on you now to do a perfect show? Does reality reflect the show itself?
CR: Well yea I mean both of us are kind of perfectionists, we’re quite… organised and anal about things and so that does come into it, but it came from the characters and we weren’t writing about ourselves. [Laughs] We do sometimes come up with characters that aren’t too far off ourselves.
DO’D: We talked to Gavin about where we would like the show to go and we went away for a few weeks and he went away for a few weeks and we came up with these two characters that we liked…
CR: …and a kind of a world, a dark world where there are people who love the glitz and the glamour, and that sort of superficial element of the world of musicals. It’s a stereotype but then there is something underneath.
So it is sort of about what you hate as well as what you love about music and musicals?
CR: In a way yes, [Laughing and pointing at Donncha] he wanted me to say that I hate musicals and that he loves them, but that’s not true! There are things that I hate, and that has affected us because in a way I want to show that up, and to show up the things that musicals lack.
So it could be described as an Anti-Musical?
DO’D: In a way.
CR: Erm, in some ways it is, and in other ways it is totally a musical musical! Like the music is… well I think quite traditional.
Ronan Phelan: It has two quite alternative characters, who are insisting on glamour and they haven’t really gathered where it all started from…
CR: It is a bit of a skewed idea of reality, about trying to make it.
DO’D: That’s it, it is a skewed idea of what musicals should be but it is told in a very polished way because that is what I look for in musicals, everything is so polished so great compared to real life.
CR: And that is where we agree. [Laughs]
Asking about how the show related to the theme of the festival “Brave New World” they insisted that it did not come into play at the start of the process. However looking at the finished product they could see how their work could now relate to the overall theme.
RP: It could work in counterpoint to it (the theme) in the sense that the characters are looking for their safe old world, their constant [...] I think it’s interesting because I think there is part of all of us which is like “Oh great, we’re all poor again”, everyone remembers the 90s but like…
CR: Yeah, and people romanticise the 80s.
RP: Yea I remember having more money than I have now, great I am where I am now, loving poverty but at the same time life was easier!
DO’D: I think when we had our initial meeting, they liked the idea that, yes we all know the recession is here, we all know how it is…
CR: … we’ve seen all the shows about the doom and gloom…
DO’D: So let’s just try and make this one happy without looking directly at the problem.
RP: In fact traditionally musicals do really well in a recession, the explosion in the 40s was a reaction to the crash.
CR: [Laughs] So we are riding on the back of the recession!
You guys are going to be taking this on the road now…
CR: That is the plan, the support they give us is fantastic. It is highly organised in the sense that you meet all these people from theatre and all around the country and the world who are there specifically to hear what you have to say. There is no guarantee that anyone is going to buy it but it is there as an opportunity to sell yourself, your show and get an amazing foot in the door.
DO’D: Also it is a fifty minute musical, the whole name changed because Gavin thought “Oh it’s a pocket musical” so we are quite versatile.
Can you talk a bit about the music itself?
DO’D: Oh the music is by Denis Clohessy, he is fantastic!
CR: He worked on a show we were both in, so I think because we knew him that was helpful. He really listens to what we ask for, he is frightfully good at hearing what we want and doesn’t impede too much while still staying so creative.
DO’D: The music is fairly musical music but it is just off the musical track… it is on the footpath of musical music. [laughs]
Do you see scope for developing this show?
CR: Yea, Denis said that we should think of it, but for now we are just focussing on the job at hand, but he was excited because he writes a lot of music for hundreds of companies…
DO’D: and he wouldn’t be afforded the opportunity, musically he can’t express himself like he can with us…
CR: Also In a musical the music speaks more I think, and tells more about the story, rather than just to accompany something else. He was telling us how he particularly liked writing for theatre or film because it affords creativity. He was saying he would like to develop more with us. I mean in 50 minutes we have four songs with one repeated so five numbers in an hour is quite a lot. So you know it would be nice to space it out a bit maybe.
Dress in traditional musicals can be quite particular, do you try to quote that?
CR: The costumes are based on decadence more than glamour, because it is more based on the wealthy and upper class. They are a bit weird but it reflects that they haven’t found what they want…
DO’D: …The aesthetic as a whole will make sense on stage but it is quite minimal, it is a small show and that reflects the “Show in a Bag” idea.
RP: I mean it is on in Bewleys, it is relatively small, it is a nice forum for it to explore itself and develop.
Does a small venue appeal to you?
CR: I’ve had it in my head from the start so it will fit, I’ve imagined this world in that theatre all the time.
RP: I just can’t wait to watch a full-on song and dance routine take place on a stage 4ft from somebody.
CR: [laughs] I can’t wait either.
DO’D: It does make it such a portable show, because you could theoretically do it in a bar or something.
CR: [laughing] in a bar!?
DO’D: Well we could, well we could do it in a restaurant, and we could bring back all the feasible theatre venues…
CR: we are going to take over… and then we will be in the Abbey. [laughs]
When I saw that you were performing it in such a small venue, it is the sort of place where you have a real direct connection with the audience, face to face…
DO’D: Well that is it, I think the show isn’t all just balls-out, in your face musical style. It actually tells a lovely story that people can connect with.
CR: Yea there is a real personal element that we are telling as actors on a personal level. We both like dressing up and having a ball, that element is all really superficial and to be honest with you we both really enjoy that. But if we only did that it would start to feel empty, and Show in a Bag has really afforded us to do more with what we like, and it really has emotional resonance, it is thought provoking and it does make you think. We are trying to do all of that and have fun at the same time. While it seems like a lot, that is what good theatre is; it has to do it all.
Company: Donncha O’Dea & Camille Ross
Venue: Bewley’s Cafe Theatre
Date/Time: Tue 13 6:00 pm / Thu 15 8:00 pm / Wed 21 6:00 pm / Fri 23 6:00 pm
Duration: 50 mins
Tickets: €10.00 – €10.00
Dave Donoghue has written 149 articles on this blog.
Founder of Art Hub. Electronic Artist, Blogger, Photographer, Art lover from Dublin, Ireland. www.intheblackbox.eu
