What the Press are saying about Trainspotting: START Magazine Review

One final review for Devious Theatre’s production of ‘Trainspotting’ came through this morning. Published in the autumn 2008 edition of Start Magazine, the arts magazine for the South East of Ireland. Written by Ita Morrissey, the review can be found in the magazine available here as a free download;

“For folks that are unacquainted with ‘Trainspotting’ performed by Devious Theatre (Watergate, Kilkenny, June), it’s the tale of a dark and dirty Edinburgh told through the lives of five down and out drug riddled friends.

The risky aspect in taking on a production such as ‘Trainspotting’ is the subject matter it confronts; take the infamous toilet scene when Renton retrieves his pills, Alison’s re-enactment of spoiling food when she worked as a waitress and then there is all the business with needles.

It was apparent that this troupe of actors had worked hard to achieve a naturalistic Scottish accent; the dialogue was delivered in a superior manner by many of the cast. Ross Costigan, who played Renton, was able to juggle the accent with volume to a perfect level, but at times Begbie, played by Niall Sheehy, went beyond what could be deciphered. And occasionally the vocal abilities of the one or two of female actors were testing on the audience. That only being a minor note compared to the standard reached by all the others.

The first half ran at a great pace, as Renton was used to marvellous effect guiding the audience along his life of drugs and hard times. Costigan’s skill at portraying this down beaten but lovable character was magnificent; he lived and breathed him.

It was slightly disappointing then, not have the same connection with him in the second half. That being said, there were some beautiful moves throughout the play, especially in two specific scenes where Sick Boy (John Morton) tangoed with Mother Superior (Paul Young) in a junkie frenzy and where Spud reveals his dirty sheets across the breakfast table.

This type of blocking from directors Niamh Moroney and John Morton only contributed to the professional standard of this production.”

You can download a free copy of this months START Magazine HERE, in this months issue where you’ll also find an awesome full-page interview with ‘Vultures’ co-writer Paddy Dunne.

237 Posts!

It’s well into September, I thought following the crazy summer; things would have slowed down by now and that I would be able to get back to more regular blogging!? It’s still taking a little getting use to the fact that I’m not going back to college but I’ve had plenty to keep me distracted from the “September blues”, here’s an update on what I’m doing;

Firstly, my two newest posts “Meet Matt McLoughlin” and “Meet Ned Savage” bring me up to a total of 237 posts here on Oss237.com just as the statcounter turns over on 80,000 hits. The new shots are also the beginning of a long series of character portraits I’ll be doing for the Mycrofilms web-based sitcom ‘Vultures’. As I’ve said in my previous post, we’re currently in the middle of shooting the third episode in the series, ‘The Mystery Of The Night Time Refuse‘.

These new character portraits are just the beginning of a whole host of extra’s we’re working on, in the run up to the release of episode 3. The idea is to provide a series of portraits that give a little insight into each of the characters in the show and you can also read their character bios here on VulturesPI.com. You can also check out a whole collection of my behind-the-scenes shots from the set of ‘Vultures’ here on my new flickr account.

With KilkennyMusic.com reaching three years old; the website is going to get a bit of a new look, bringing in some new features and as a part of this I’m moving all my shots from the KilkennyMusic Galleries (1508 shots in total) to the new KilkennyMusic Flickr. We’ve also just been long-listed for ‘Best Music’ in the 2008 Irish Web Awards.

The Hype Entertainment Battle of the Bands 2008 is in the final stages, the finalists have been announced and myself, Ken and Andrew McGuinness will sit behind the judges table one last time this coming Sunday as the remaining bands battle it out. You can see all my photos from the competition so far here. And myself and Ken are back with the weekly Sound System Podcast show, which is still free to download.

The Devious Theatre website is about to be relaunched with a new look and a whole archive of promo material from past productions and our upcoming epic. I’m about to begin transferring all my shots from the last four productions into the new Devious Theatre flickr account. And we’re already in pre-production for our next show, it’s all very hush-hush at the moment, all I’m saying is “30.10.08“. (More on this soon)

In the run up to the launch of their debut CD, ‘Strands’, I’ve been doing a lot of work with progressive-grunge experiment, The Lions Mane. In particular, getting back into music video production. I’m currently working on a video featuring The Lions Mane recording ‘Smegma’ in the Mill Studios. I’ll blog more about the video at a later stage but I’ve begun posting behind-the-scenes video clips on youtube with plenty more to come.

You’ll also find a whole host of new videos on my youtube account, short little video clips from all of my above mentioned adventures and projects. With little time to blog about things, I’ve quickly become addicted to capturing video clips behind-the-scenes on everything I’m doing at the moment.

On the P.R side of things, well I’ve pretty much being doing all sorts of P.R activities I can, with all of the above mentioned projects. Every week for the last two months, I’ve been firing out press-releases and photos to all the local media and I’m happy to say that every week the local papers publish everything and give credit where it’s due (They must have got my message) and at this stage myself and Ken should have our own radio show; at least one of us is being interviewed for something every week.

So, September may be here and the weather surely sucks, but at moment the “post-college blues” are nowhere to be found. Now, if only somebody would give me a job!!!