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SITTING ON THE dimly lit stage of the Helix, a little girl hauntingly sings the words to the song It’s a Long Way to Tipperary as the blindfolded leaders of 1916 Rising stand behind under spotlights.
One by one, shots are fired and the men fall to the ground.
This is the opening scene to the new musical drama about the 1916 Rising which is due to hit the road state-side for a world tour next year to coincide with centenary celebrations.
The Bloody Irish brings to life the events leading up to the execution of the 1916 leaders at Kilmainham jail with music, song and dance.
The musical drama had its first live performance before an audience at the Helix in DCU this week. The performance was filmed for a two hour Public Broadcast Service (PBS) special which is due to air in the US on 17 October.
In February 2016, The Bloody Irish will launch in theatres across America, with a hope to bring it to Irish theatres later in the year.
Written by Irish musician, screen writer and director Barry Devlin, it tells some of the real-life stories behind Ireland’s most famous week in history.
What kind of music can you expect?
Not one to disappoint an audience, the renowned composer and arranger David Downes known for his work with Riverdance and Celtic Woman productions, is behind music.
“This is a show, I think you will never have seen the likes of before,” he said.
The musical includes some of Ireland’s best known songs, such as Monto, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Mo Ghile Mear.
Downes said it combines many aspects that are found in a theatre show and a musical.
While one might expect a play about the 1916 Rising to be narrated by a stand-out character in Irish history like Patrick Pearse or Michael Collins, it is actually narrated by the other side of the story – the British.
General John Grenfell Maxwell who was responsible for the execution of the leaders narrates the story throughout.
Scenes such as the GPO siege, the reading of the Proclamation as well as the aftermath of the Rising and the public’s disgust of some of the leaders are all portrayed through music and song.
The drama ends in a description of life after the momentous 1916 Rising with the whole ensemble, band and orchestra performing The Parting Glass.
Directed by acclaimed director Michael Barker Caven and produced by Ned O Hanlon, the production showcases a twenty-three strong cast of Irish actors and singers.
These include Gavin O’Connor, as seen in RTÉ’s Charlie playing the character of Sean Doherty; Lisa Lambe from Celtic Woman; Ruth McGill from What Richard Did; and Lorcan Cranitch as seen in TV series Atlantis and Penny Dreadful.
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Sounds good from the report. Why, oh why, must we ‘real’ Irish people have to be last to see the show?
because real Irish people are an endangered species-we have Americans like multi-billionaire John Malone calling Ireland the 51st State of America.Coillte, whome Malone described as knowledgeable and responsible and good to deal with, sold him 150 acres at Humewood without consultation with the public or other stakeholders.This is called -”rent-seeking” and Americans have bought more Irish property in the last 5 years than in all 50 years before that.Coillte are also selling land to Centre Parcs in Longford.So this new neo -liberalism, is a betrayal of the 1916 leaders and i’d boycott this egotistical farce even if i were offered a free ticket.If you want to honor our patriots then do something about Coillte LIKE make a submission before 28th Aug -Public Consultation process) and the NRA(who are destroying the countryside making roads that are not needed and bypasses that are destroying rural towns) who make the IRA look like Monks
This is one of those Based on a true story art pieces that use all the original message and places; however every thing else makeyuppy! that’s why we’re not going to see it until the last possible moment. I smell propaganda here.
*delete message. insert names
Where is the transvestite alien?
licking his wounds I’d say lol
I imagine it is to drum up interest from the Americans so they will fly in and spend their dollars here for the celebrations / commemorations..
You mean those in 1916 didn’t die for gay marriage, the Troika or for Merkel, I’m shocked at that… lol.
His or her’s lol.
Irish people will get to see it after the media critics and the political correctness brigade get to see it.
“Even though I was born in Essex, I feel Irish. It’s where the heart is,” says Ferris, whose mother was born in Derry and raised in Donegal and Tyrone. “It was so important for me to tell this story because it dawned on me that it was so sacred to the Irish.” Quote from Sean Ferris creator of the show in December 2010.
I’m guessing that PBS money was used to film the production and that’s why it will be shown in America in 2016.
Wasn’t there a comedy made about something like this. I think it was called “The producers” one of the songs was called Springtime for Hitler .
Seeing what the EEC became and that is the E.U. then they died for nothing…
They didn’t die for their morals to be discarded, the shell to be polished by PC then triumphed in flashy musical productions.
Shameful.
The thing that made the rising was how they were executed as well as not everyone that was involved was executed either. The survivors used the executed to promote their own believes as well. As before the rising most people were happy selling their goods to England as farmer hands and farm horses were sent to war leaving Ireland selling goods to England and happy making money from that…
It is a lesson for today and the E.U. as people are happy loosing their sovereignty once they are making money and do not realise what they have lost until they loose their money, a lack of money and growing poverty seems to awaken nationalism in many.
The idea of making money is enough to keep them happy for a while until reality sinks in, seeing the rich making money makes them think they can do this as well and keeps them within certain systems of enslavement. In 1916 many Irish were happy to have no sovereignty and no currency of their own as they had money coming in because England was at war even Waterford had the most men fighting for them in WW1 from Ireland.
Now in 2015 we have no sovereignty as we have no currency of our own again and the E.U. laws and regulations have a good part of our political sovereignty in Brussels now and not as in 1916 in London. Will the collapse of the Euro reawaken our nationalism once more like in 1916 or has greed and consumerism with media spin clouded everyones judgement and common sense? Long live the dead as their dreams now are as dead as they are as is Ireland…
O no don’t condemn the E.U. I hear you cry as the E.U. milks the tax payer through their governments to turn private bank and financial market debt into tax payers debt. How would those in 1916 think of that. We live in a society who celebrates the past and yet have not a clue what we are celebrating as if we did then we would understand how our compliance with the E.U. goes against the spirit of the past and that of 1916.
Then the Troika turns national assets that we have into commodity for them to make money on by privatisation as the E.U. have become hedge fund vultures to pick the bones clean of our countries assets in order to feast on and all we have to do is to surrender to their will by firstly being conned into leverage buyout scenarios. That is the E.U. it is a hedge fund sting as an excuse to save a foreign currency, the euro. The ECB cause the banks to go into debt to increase the value of the Euro internationally by giving greedy banks cheap interest on cheap euro loans and then when it went bad as it was predicted to go then make tax payers foot the bill and create loans to open the door to leverage bailout scenarios, this in turn looks more like a sting than a cure?
But lets live in the past of our glories with death and honour for people and country as we hide under the delusion of being something we never were by a past that was never as tragic as it is now. The further we look into the past then the less we see what is in front of us. Lets fool ourselves and say 1916 was great as it was the birth of our country as we sit rotting in our E.U. coffins NOT knowing what is happening because unlike 1916 we have become lazy and do not find things out for ourselves anymore. We just accept what the box in the corner says and we are happy as the E.U. spends 664 million on E.U. propaganda in 2014. As a nation we are dead and that is because what we allow to happen to Ireland is re-enforcing what is happening, we are our own worst enemy. We have become part of a system now that being part of it re-enforces what it is and we do not know what we have lost through contempt. Those in 1916 would be able to see and they would be shocked and yet we celebrate them and they would be in horror at what Ireland has become?
Put a frog in boiling water and he will jump out, put him in cold water and he will stay there even if it is boiling… Then it will be too late, those in 1916 could see that the E.U. is the boiling water but we can’t as little by little we are cooked.
Without total political union in the E.U. THEN THE EURO WILL COLLAPSE but what then about democracy, then that will be totally dead.
Why do people not challenge what they are fed or what they believe or is that the times we live in and they didn’t in 1916 otherwise there would have been no rising at all?
So how can we celebrate the rising of 1916 without knowing what it was about, if we knew what it was about then we would want another to get out of the E.U. Can people not see that, we have to educate ourselves if we want to survive, it is no good going with the flow as that is just self delusion for handiest sake and they did not do that in 1916. People fool themselves because that is what they want to be true as that does not mean it is true and that is how people will see 1916 and the E.U.
I presume it is a well executed production.
Everything will be about the 1916 rising in a few months time- that play which looks good will be sold out every night it’s on in Ireland-
The IRA has left the stage.
Why write that???
Does the Michael Collins character sing ”Make it Gay, Make it Gay, Make it Gay” ?
No, it is just 50 shades of Grey with Dev’s wife lol.
“Ohhh will ya have a pint…diddly diddly eye” I think i’ll give it a miss
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