Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Where over the Rainbow Seems a Long Way AwayAuthor(s): Rebecca O'RourkeSource: Fortnight, No. 255 (Oct., 1987), p. 25Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551319 .

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Where over the rainbow

seems a long way away Rebecca O'Rourke

IT WAS perhaps nothing more than the vagaries of scheduling performances, but for Charabanc

to open their latest play in London was a great testament to the special relationship that has

developed between Londoners and themselves since they first burst upon an unsuspecting city four years ago.

Predictably, I missed Lav Up Your Ends and Ould Delf and False Teeth but friends took great delight in telling me then of the treat I'd missed. What they said to me seems to sum

up the strengths and the weaknesses of Charabanc: they could only catch about half of what was

being said but that didn't matter.

With Somewhere Over the Balcony it would matter a lot which half was heard and

which not. The play opens with three very unromantic women, in their nighties and slippers,

taking the night air on the balcony of their Divis flats and singing songs with tunes so romantic

that it takes a little while to catch on to the words. A new tour of soldiers is coming in and the

themes of the songs are invasion.

The play revolves round the balconies: everything is seen from there, directed from there. The

whole world passes before us, with a little help from the CB radio, as a surreal incident in the

life of these women unfurls before us. I wouldn't want to dwell too much on what actually takes

place, because it would spoil the pleasure of it.

Suffice it to say that only Charabanc, with its sheer energy and acting skills, would get away with a poodle joyriding in a Saracen, bingo as the be-all and end-all of life, a siege in a church

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The view from the balcony -

(from right:) Eleanor Methven, Carol

Scanlan and Marie Jones

holding up a wedding that finally takes place minutes before the baby's born, and a running joke that makes distinctions of which the Jesuits would be proud between bombs and controlled

explosions. It's all very, very funny. The delivery is as slick and fast as the best slapstick comedy

routines and the jokes are at times wonderfully, appallingly awful. Well of course the Doberman

would always be referred to as puir wee Rambo, especially when he's busy eating his dinner and

misses the excitement going on outside.

But there is a serious side to it too. When the controlled explosion leaves Kate's flat standing, minus walls, it may be very funny

- particularly as she comments ruefully that it's just not her

day. Yet a little after you see what a good metaphor this is for the play: how it exposes what

otherwise is private, how it symbolises the awfulness of their lives, the powerlessness to do

anything but laugh and get on as best you can. Clever to have thought of it, except they didn't

exactly - it really happened to one of the people whose life experiences fed into this play.

The title made me think of Judy Garland: that sense of a world that is turned upside down but

brings with its chaos the other world, of peace and security, that exists somewhere over the

rainbow. We had plenty of the world turned upside, sideways, head over heels, and the peace was

there mostly, bitterly, in its absence and in the commentary about and by the children. The cast

were brilliant in making real for us those various people they addressed at the back of the hall or

through the CB equipment. Eleanor Methven in particular was so excellent that at the end of the

play I felt cheated that Big Tucker and the twins weren't coming forward to take a bow, so

powerfully had she evoked their presence. But the other source of peace in the play was in the determination to live a life that took

account of, but was not just the sum total of, poverty in a war zone. A life that had its humour,

desperation, rivalry, generosity, dreams.

By playing it as the bleak tragi-comedy it is and comes out of, the company gave us an

evening that was both sheer enjoyment and a cause for reflection. I felt in the audience, though, a kind of embarrassment when the joking stopped and the quieter more reflective pieces held the

stage, and it made me wonder what they were making of them. There is often a lag, whether it's

with the language or the cultural referents with a London audience, and that seems to me worth

thinking about.

A good part of the audience was of course Irish, but whenever I sit with the English having a

good laugh at the Irish I can't help wondering at whose expense the joking really is and whether some of the enjoyment Charabanc bring isn't a kind of relief at not having to think too seriously about Ireland. Which would be a great pity, because their seriousness is never in question.

No premium on purity James Simmons

THE NOTION of folk music has expanded to include everything that consenting adults might want to perform. It includes

traditional music, although some spec ialists think 'folk' corrupts tradition.

Musical people are bound to hear a great

variety of traditions and should be none

the worse for showing the influence.

Purity is no earthly weapon. I sampled the Sunday night concert at

during the Folk Festival in the Ulster Hall

to see how Paddy Reilly would fit in with

Jane Cassidy and the Sands Family. It

was quite an evening, the hall full enough to give a sense of occasion. Comperes and

openers were Bachan, a duo of fluent

guitar players and pleasing harmonisers, the most pleasant surprise of the night.

They did a fine version of Yeats' favourite,

Johnny I hardly knew ye, and a very

plausible Chattanooga Choo Choo. Ash

Plant was made up of three Danes and two

Irishmen, playing very good Irish music

with a hint of jazz about it - like De

Dannan, but not quite so brilliant. Jane Cassidy has a lovely generous

strong voice and a relaxed, modest

presence. I liked the first of her three

McCracken songs, but by and large the

lyrics are too bland and the tunes

uninteresting. Moreover she stands too

close to the mike and loses too many words. Rod McVey is a very fluent

musician, but again there was no edge or

flair. We were left with the beautiful voice

coming from the beautiful woman and

nothing much else happening. She must

get better songs. The Sands Family are genial, talented,

amusing and very professional in an

unobtrusive way. Tommy writes the

emotional songs and Colum writes the

clever ones. These are always worth

listening to, although I find There were

Roses almost too schematic to earn the

expansive chorus: "There were roses,

roses, and the tears of the people ran

together." You can see the roses rising

naturally out of the country road setting, but "the tears" is a little forced, too easy in

its emotion. Ann's version of I Know

where rm Going was perfect. The aud

ience were reluctant to let them go.

Paddy Reilly is a bulky man of middle years with a guitar. He makes the sort of

noises I hear coming across the street

from the Longfellow Bar every Friday and

Saturday: coarse, over-amplified, without

feeling. The songs are old favourites - no

harm in that - but I could hardly bear to

listen. The same audience that had

apparently been enjoying an evening of

very musical singing and playing was

applauding this monster. Very strange. On paper the variety of music offered al

this year's festival was very exciting.

Trying to extract information from

organiser Geoff Harden, the morning after

the last concerts, was not easy. He was

very tired and had not consulted with his

treasurer, but he seemed to feel that

everything at the Europa had been very well attended and enjoyed, that the

smaller events at the Group had gone very well, but that there may not have been

enough people to fill the Ulster Hall as

well. We must thank him for trying.

Fortnight October 25

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