Dear Reader –
Many of you commented in my recent survey that you wanted more podcast, book and music recommendations - so that’s exactly what I have given you today!
Last week’s answers:
Answer to the questions in last week’s letter:
1 - See pic below
2 - C, B, E. A. D. G, G, C, G, C.
**All hyperlinks in bold.
The Big Thing
“I wish I cared about anything else in life as much as I care about musical theatre:”.
An insight into the mind of producer, director and all-round brains behind Pop-Up Theatre - Karen Gordon. Karen was our guest on the latest episode of In The Lamplight and if you want to know what it takes (and what it can take out of you) to put on a show to the standard that Karen does, have a listen.
We also discuss Luke’s national award for Best Supporting Actor, how we got on with our kindness challenge, and finish the episode with a gorgeous double vocal from Luke and Rory on Tomorrow (Annie).
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Where else but Sligo?
Francie Lenehan.
King of the strings.
Guitar stalwarts of our town such as Gerry Grennan and Seamie O’Dowd would have looked up to him growing up. I remember Georgie Gorman telling a story on his very first Theme Night about Francie and his brother John and how much he worshipped them as a young lad..
And now many of us look up to these great musicians. But it all goes back to Francie.
It’s not just his playing though. His legendary wit came to the surface in our trip to Vicar St a few years ago. And his signature shirts and shorts have inspired many a young musician’s dress sense over the years.
He played on a few Theme Nights over the years and I was always struck by his professionalism. You don’t last this long in our business without it - and he has it in spades.
He is revered by many. And we have our opportunity to pay our respects to him (and see a fantastic concert) on June 24. Nights like this don’t come around too often. I have booked my tickets and hope to see you there.
What’s New?
KENDY AND RAYBO 200: More podcast news today - a big congrats to Mark and Ray (aka Kendy and Raybo) on reaching this podcast milestone. They are experts at knocking craic out of anything at all - listen here (at 7:26) to hear them discussing the time we surprised audience member Mark at a Theme Night and got him up on stage!
MAURA GILLIGAN has produced a truly beautiful book about Coney Island. I don’t use those words lightly. Find out more here.
KINGS OF COOL: This great Donegal-based band will launch their first album this coming Thursday 4th May in the Abbey Arts Centre in Ballyshannon. They have kindly asked me to play a few songs with them and there are still a small number of tickets available here.
Finally…
As mentioned above…
Questions:
Difficulty Level 1 - How many times had Mark rehearsed this with us prior to this performance?
Difficulty Level 5 - How many lyrics of the song did Mark actually get right?!
Till next time - Kieran.
