Spacers return for first time since pandemic with new comedy

The local Spacers amateur drama group , who were just about to stage a play when the country went into lockdown in March 2020, are back with an original comedy set during the pandemic.

“The country shutdown on Thursday and we were due to go into the Friary Hall the following week,” recalls Joan Wilson.

While they had been all set to stage the comedy I’m The One For You by Irish playwright Jimmy Kearney, Joan says that they never returned to the scrip.

“People moved jobs, got married, had children, so we couldn’t get the original cast back together again.”

The group remained in a prolonged lockdown of their own, only coming out of hibernation last September.

When the search for a suitable new script proved fruitless, Joan Wilson found the desperate measures were called for.

“We just couldn’t find a script that matched the age profile and gender of the group,” she says.

So rather than give up on the prospect of taking to the stage, Joan went home and came up with a script herself.

As a recently retired primary school teacher, she has previously written scripts for school plays, but this was her first time embarking on writing for the amateur theatre stage.

Not wanting the cast to feel obliged to say that her script was wonderful, she presented it to them with the playwright’s name ‘as Gaeilge’. Luckily they gave it the thumbs up and rehearsals got underway in January.

Splendid Isolation is set during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with the action taking place in a Dundalk hotel.

“It’s about a lady who has a hotel in Dundalk but business is deciminated by lockdown. She then accepts a proposal by the HSE to turn the hotel into an isolation centre for people returning from abroad.”

The story unfolds as a variety of different characters checkin for a stay that they hadn’t planned.

“I wrote the parts to suit the group members who were available to take part in the play.”

Joan says that it is amazing to look back at regulations that were brought in to stop the spread of COVID-19 and how people got used to them.

“At the time it became second nature to stand a certain distance from people, not to sit beside someone and to sanitize your hands.”

Joan had also been directing the production but had to step into an acting role when a member became unavailable and they had to shuffle the cast, with Eimear Boyle taking over as director.

The cast includes also David McArdle, Joanne Dalton, Karen Maguire, Barbara Finegan, Denise Tighe, Stephanie Rocks, Mark Matthews, and Maeve Montgomery.

Set design is by Michael and Amy Galligan and Martina Clerkin with Damien O’Callaghan on sound

Spendid Isolation opens on Thursday night in the Friary Hall, Anne Street, Dundalk and runs for three nights. Tickets €15 are available at the door or by contacting 086 2268606