Sligo Drama Circle Opens Spring Season

It was a pleasure to hear an audience laughing and enjoying themselves the way they did at the opening performance of John B. Keane’s “Many Young Men of Twenty” which is the first play of Sligo Drama Circle’s Spring season. Producer Manus Shiels has succeeded in giving us a play of music, fun and just the right degree of seriousness to balance the evening’s entertainment.

The setting is the back room in a rural pub in the 1950’s. The story is of those who leave Ireland for a better life in London, a story often told yet the play is fresh and alive. Although there were a few rough spots, the sixteen characters were given such memorable portrayals by the cast it is hard to do justice to them all in a short space.

Michael Kilcoyne, whether singing or talking, as the ne’er-do-well, “Danger” Mullally, received great laughs. After the curtain call, when he stepped forward to make an announcement, the audience burst into applause. Catherine Clancy, as Peg Finerty the barmaid whose sad memories of lost love fade as Maurice Brown and Kevin Cably, played by Columb Mc Bride and Seamus Kennelly, compete for her, will be remembered mainly for her lovely singing voice.

Frankie Brannigan as Dinny departs for London at the end of the first act. His transformation upon returning (supposedly a year later) was so well done that the visual image started the audience laughing and the rest kept them laughing throughout the whole performance. His cockney wife Dot, played by Rena Meehan, is a perfect comic contrast to himself.

Another fine and funny character is the singing, fortune-telling Kitty Curley played by Sheila Horan in a way that fully explains the lyric, “I love pretty Kitty Curley, ‘deed I do”. She is accompanied on the accordion by Don Molloy who, with Claire Hunt on the piano, make the evening a musical success. Claire Hunt was responsible for musical direction.

Pádraig Foran and Mary Conlon are both very good as the hen-pecked brother-bartender Tom Hannigan and dominating sister Seelie. Other parts well played are the parents sending their children away; the staid Daheen Timineen Din (Rory Callagy) and Meynen (Mary Gilbride) whose catalogue of advice is something to hear; J.J. Houlihan, the manipulating T.D. (Joe Meehan) and his less than intelligent son (John Caheny)add more comedy. The two youngest emigrants Mickey (Barry Mc Kinney) and Mary (Kathleen Galligan) complete the cast. “Many Young Men of Twenty” continues its run on Tuesday next 18th May and on 20th and 22nd May.

from The Sligo Champion, March 14th, 1975