With all its glitzy pageantry, moving postlude, and magnetic comedy, the Dublin Fringe Festival came back with a range of multi-disciplinary pieces that toe the fine line between lovingly nuanced and eccentric. Spanning from September 9th until the 24th, I was looking to make the most of the variety the Fringe had to offer in the window of time that I had. This led me to take a selection of highlighters to this year’s colourful programme that was illustrated by Laura Callaghan.
The first show on my list was HOTHOUSE, a real heavy hitter presented by MALAPROP and played in the Project Arts Centre. This show was beautifully existential and one of many highlights of the Fringe for me. This play presents you with the grim realities of our apocalyptic future in a way that will have you laughing until the very last bow. I did a full review of this play that you can read here.
The following day, Sunday the 10th, was Leanne Devlin’s one-woman comedy-drama Slippery When Wet. This show follows a young, struggling actor who has to move back in with her mother after she is turned away from multiple jobs. Now back in her hometown, she takes a job as a cleaner at a supermarket where her attentions are swept up by one of her co-workers. Challenging the loneliness and instability of life in the arts, Devlin managed to bring to life an entertaining story of love and rejection. With fun character comedy and the all too familiar pains of work parties, Slippery When Wet was a relatable yet uplifting show about recentering your life after it’s been redirected. I enjoyed this show a lot and what it really highlighted for me so soon in the Fringe is what a variety of shows the festival has to offer.
Later that evening I headed over to what is probably the most beautiful of Fringe locations, the Chapel Royal at Dublin Castle, to see Nowhere Better Than This Place. I will preface this next segment with the fact that this was the only show I saw at the Fringe that was a complete miss for me. I should have known this would not necessarily be up my alley when it had music described as “solemn and seductive” but I’m nothing if not open to trying new things. As the show began, I entered into what I could only describe as auditory hell. I found the synthesisers to be too much of nothing and, for a contemporary visual performance piece, I found it to be too long. I’m aware of my own instantaneously brash impressions of things and so I tried to delve into the mind of a contemporary artist, looking for signs of what this show’s deeper meaning could be. It didn’t take much reflection to realise that no matter what modern spin you put on something, I still spent five straight minutes of my life watching a man rub a mic back and forth on a trowel. He then proceeded to build and then dismantle structures across the stage for the next forty minutes.
Though too experimental for my taste, it was clear that both performers, Andy Ingamells and Seán Clancy, were very passionate about what they were creating. Nowhere Better Than This Place could be interpreted as a piece about the ever-changing and ever-isolating nature of urban development in Ireland. A development that often leaves people in the dust and prioritises anything but those who need to live here. At least that was my begrudging takeaway from the performance. Though I disliked the way it was presented, it was certainly a memorable show and as the lights went up I found the rest of the crowd sitting in as dazed a state as I was. If you enjoy more experimental pieces then the work of both performers will be ideal for you.
I had a brief break in shows and missed some due to a very inconvenient cold right in the middle of the Fringe but I was back on the 16th to see Dog Shit. This show, written by Bellaray Bertrand-Webb and directed by Ursula McGinn, was performed at the New Theatre. Thematically it reminded me a little bit of Slippery When Wet. Both shows dealt with the unstable life in the arts. Dog Shit went in on how inaccessible and underfunded the arts sector can be. This is a clear frustration that ripples across all aspects of the industry. To see it being explained in all its complexity through this four-person play was almost gratifying. Dog Shit features four friends (and their three dogs) who have their gripes with one another that slowly worm their way to the surface. This dark comedy features great performances from all four cast members as they perfectly balance comedy with tragic circumstance.
Later that evening was Clash at the Quays, an event by Ahmed, with Love. This event was an eclectic mix of some of the East Coast’s most exciting musicians combined with the world of wrestling. The marriage of the two was a real novelty and translated well for the crowd. This event easily sold out and had the venue packed with young people, many of whom told me that this was the only Fringe event they had booked to see. Toting a Four Loco sponsorship and decked out in fast-selling merch for the event itself, Clash at the Quays was action-packed from start to finish. The atmosphere in the audience was electric, I believe they could have easily run this event for three nights straight and sold out every single time. At one stage a mosh pit that could only be described as rowdy opened up next to me and I watched as a girl, egged on by her friends, went to join it and immediately took an elbow to the face. She then stumbled out of the mosh pit to a nearby railing where she remained, slumped against it and holding her nose, until the song ended. Despite some small mosh pit-related injuries the night was a huge success and the hype only grew with each act that took to the wrestling ring that served as the stage. With boisterous performances, quick turnaround time on equipment and consistently entertaining hosting, Clash at the Quays was a must-see for the Dublin Fringe. With any luck, they will be running this event again because this is not one you’ll want to miss.
Coming into the final week of the Fringe I found myself with a far less hectic schedule and only four shows to go. Now, the problem with getting tickets for over ten different Fringe shows is that when they send you email reminders you stop reading them after the first few. Every email looked the same, “event reminder” with details of the show that I already had on the ticket. That is why I rolled up to the pub, All My Friends, to see B.S. incorporated on a Wednesday evening. The issue there soon became apparent as I asked the bartenders where the Fringe show was happening, and they told me that the venue had been changed to the Pearse Centre. That is how I found myself wandering dejectedly through the Liberties knowing that due to Dublin’s lack of any efficient left-to-right Southside transport, I would not be making it in time to get into the show. Begrudgingly, I made my way to the Project Arts Centre for my final show. I was so early that the bar hadn’t opened yet which meant I couldn’t trick myself into thinking I was indifferent and nonchalant about the mix-up by sipping on a glass of wine while waiting. I don’t want to point any fingers on this one. Realistically, I should have read the email. But I would give a tentative suggestion that email subject lines are there to be used and “Dublin Fringe Festival order confirmation” is not the same as “venue change” or “changes to event” or “Adelaide please read this email because it is important information about the show you are going to” or just something that isn’t so incredibly vague and without urgency.
Tempting as it was, I didn’t let myself hold onto my self-inflicted misery for too long. I had a different show to go to that night and it was one I was very excited for and had been the first thing I booked for the Fringe. The very talented Hannah Mamalis was performing her comedy piece, Stars, in The Cube. I first came across Mamalis through Dreamgun, a Dublin-based comedy group that deserves all the success, and maybe more, of other groups such as Foil Arms & Hog and The 2 Johnnies. I have happily inflicted them upon any and all people I know whenever I get the chance. It was through a number of their shows that I became familiar with the humour and timing of Mamalis and so I was looking forward to seeing what she was like solo. Needless to say, she did not disappoint. Stars is full of ridiculously immature comedy without being overly crass and the varying characters that Mamalis played had the crowd roaring. Despite carrying out some of the most absurd bits, she did not break character and any time she did take a moment to laugh at her own jokes it had all the familiarity of sharing an in-joke with a friend. The closeness in Mamalis’ style of comedy had Stars feeling like something that was being shared rather than being performed. The enjoyment that Mamalis has for her craft is contagious and breeds an electric atmosphere.
Friday 22nd I went to see my penultimate show, Retch. This was another one-woman performance that followed a young woman who struggles to connect with her father and is directionless. After meeting a man at the bus stop, she follows him and has a day unlike any she’s ever experienced. Writer and performer Leanne Bickerdike carries out an energetic and extraordinarily physical performance on stage. With impressive stamina, she tells her story by embodying multiple characters and moving with eccentric gesture. Bickerdike was captivating from the get-go and held the attention of the audience until her last word on stage.
The final show I watched at the Fringe was Tiny Piano Man by the endlessly funny David O’Doherty. A personal favourite of mine, O’Doherty took to the stage armed with his keyboard and fresh from watching the Ireland vs. South Africa game that was unfortunately timed to also be that night. O’Doherty’s comedy is smart, consistent and rounds well onto itself. He has a honed skill for off-the-cuff crowd work and a passion for performance that, to the enjoyment of the audience, he makes clear. Not only did I find his show to deliver on the expectations I have of the quality of his work, but he also aimed the content to land in a rather uplifting way. O’Doherty made a point of speaking about how much he values his job, particularly since Covid, and how he tries to do every show he can now that he knows what it is like to go without. He has a shameless love and respect for what he does and when you can feel this bleed through a performance it allows it to seep a little bit deeper in impact.
Leaving my Fringe experience off with O’Doherty let one important message ring through. One that I saw through many of the shows I saw, no matter the discipline. This is that there is great value in the arts and entertainment sector. These areas produce the things that are the lifeblood of the human experience and are endlessly necessary to give us access to an outlet for a range of intense emotions. The loud subtext of creative content coming from some of Dublin’s best right now is clear. The negligence and indifference that creatives in their respective industries experience is causing a slow and painful death. The one thing that kept many people going during the Coronavirus was access to art, film, theatre, and any other digital format of media you can imagine. It would be unfair not to pay back this sector now that we have the means and clear desire to. The Dublin Fringe Festival is important because it is a well-established platform for comedians, playwrights, actors, dancers, and musicians alike, yet it’s still not enough. Ireland has no end of talented individuals who want to stay, live and work here but underfunding and lack of opportunity force them out and abroad.
A reportedly “unprecedented”increase in funding that amounts to over 2 billion euros could be found for An Garda Síochána in the 2023 budget. (for reference, housing, something that Ireland is expert at having crises in, was allocated 2.3 billion in the budget) With this in mind, it’s not hard to believe that resources such as the Arts Council should be able to receive the 20 million increase they have been asking for on the 130 million they’ve been getting for the past two years. If the Gardaí can be given 7 million to spend on a plane then it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Ireland’s national agency for film, TV and animation, Fís Éireann, to receive more than the 3.5 million they received to allocate solely to regional activity. These are only the primary resources for the arts as well, there are numerous smaller institutes that do work of equal import that could use any level of consistent funding. If you want all the benefits of having successful art arise out of your city or country, then you must be willing to ensure that those who create it do not choke under a neglectful eye. Supporting events such as the Fringe is the key to this and so I would urge people to keep up to date on the Fringe and other upcoming arts events across Ireland.
