COMING OF RAGE

When Danny and Chantelle (still here) burst on the theatre scene in 2006, its brash fusion of club culture and commentary marked both a departure and arrival. ThisIsPopBaby were setting up stall and reflecting the times we lived in from the perspective of those living them with us. Outsiders to the perceived ‘establishment’, they were insiders when it came to the pulse of a dynamic city pregnant with hope and possibility.

Fast forward 14 years and after multiple accomplishments such as Riot and Alice in Funderland, they are back with Where

We Live, their festival of new work which holds a mirror to the people and place where we live. We get to see aspects of it which we may be ignorant of, elements we choose to ignore or those we see but with a tilt of fresh revelation. We see a city at a cross-roads too, one where current affairs segments on our TV are entitled ‘The tenant time bomb’, one in which a government is shown the door for failing to address a homeless crisis, one in which innovative peers of ThisIsPopBaby such as Corn Exchange and Collapsing Horse are shutting up shop. It’s a city in flux, reinventing and burning out in equal measure.

“Depending on the day, and depending on which way the light hits it and the wind is blowing, you can have a totally different opinion on Dublin,” says co-founder Philip McMahon “But it certainly feels entirely stretched at the moment, like there is no leadership about how we might live in the future.” Until this emerges, we will continue to follow the shards of insight cast from the disco ball brilliance of ThisIsPopBaby.