Better get in early for Culture Night’s two plays in Kanturk

PATRONS have been advised to arrive early for the performance of the plays for Culture Night 2017 in The Daily Grind, O’Brien Street, Kanturk at 8pm on Friday, September 22.

Capacity is strictly limited and last year some unfortunate hopeful attendees had to be turned away as the coffee shop was packed.

Last year’s plays were such a success on Culture Night that, due to popular demand, they were performed again for charity before Christmas, again to a full house. There is every expectation that the new plays by a pair of local playwrights, Aidan O’Keeffe and Mary Angland, will be every bit as well received.

Following on from 2016’s “The Mill Road Letters” (Part One of “The Ceann Toirc Trilogy”), “The Railway Tavern” is Part Two of the trilogy written by Aidan O’Keeffe.

“The Railway Tavern” is an hour long play set in Kanturk in the late 1990’s. The action takes place in the bar known to everyone as Cashman’s.

An exile has unexpectedly appeared after a few years abroad. The routines and rituals of the people she left behind are torn apart by her return to Kanturk. “The Railway Tavern” mixes regrets and betrayals with memories and longing.

The play stars Maureen Sheehan, John O’Sullivan, Tim Lynch Jnr and Philip Lenihan.

‘Funeral Blues’ is a 25 minute comedy which takes a whimsical look at a pair of colourful village characters - an assiduous funeral attendee, who appears without fail at every wake in the parish and beyond, though not quite for the reason one might expect. It also, less than fondly, recalls a local undertaker whose career ended ignominiously after a particularly unlucky series of mishaps in full public view.

The action takes place in the Town Park where a death notice in the paper prompts Mattie, a returned Yank who was born and reared in the village, and Nellie, a sprightly woman in her seventies, into a lively conversation recalling characters and events of the past.

The play was written by Mary Angland and is performed by Teresa O’Keeffe and Sean Bowman of Newmarket Drama Group.

Culture Night is a free, country-wide event that promotes culture and the enjoyment of it.

So, once again, the advice is to arrive early at The Daily Grind, O’Brien Street, Kanturk for the show which will begin at 8pm on Culture Night, Friday, September 22.