This year 10 Days in Dublin is delighted to be working in conjunction with The New Theatre for the second year in a row. The New Theatre has been a huge supporter of both 10 Days in Dublin and new and emerging Irish writers and this year’s programme reflects this. Having recently celebrated its 15th birthday, The New Theatre is something of a stalwart of the Irish cultural scene and we are thrilled to offer a range of comedy, theatre, dance and even clown performances on its stage.
The programme features some of the best works from Ireland’s theatre collectives such as young theatre collective We Get High on This presenting their Edinburgh hit Sluts as part of the festival. The performance has enjoyed sell-out runs in Dublin, Galway, and Kilkenny and is already tipped as ‘the unmissable highlight of the 10 Days theatre line up’ (ramp.ie) this vibrant company’s latest offering (a play ‘about stupid bitches’) is sure to be a riot. Also on the bill is Jumping the Gun theatre company presenting the Dublin premier of Just Us Four, a piece exploring the tensions between urban and rural Irish life. Working from an exclusively feminist point of view, writer Emma Houlihan investigates the subjectivity of memory and the effects of gang mentality and violence towards women.
On the comedy front, The New Theatre will have some of the most exciting people on the Irish comedy scene at the moment. Jarlath Regan, of The Panel, Craig Doyle Live, Russell Howard’s Good News and Edinburgh Fringe Festival fame presents his show The Audacity of Hope and the Inspirational Stupidity of Perseverance. Regan has enjoyed glowing reviews from the Irish Times, Independent and many Fringe publications and his show promises to be full of “side-splitting stuff”. Meanwhile Diet of Worms use stories from their famously fabricated West Dublin Suburb to create a hilarious radio comedy show in The Strollinstown Radio Hour. Comedy circuit veterans and frequently praised comics, this show offers sharp wit through an exciting format.
Spurt, by the incredibly energetic collective ‘Come As Soon As You Hear’ blends comedy and tragedy. The performance centres on the nature of death, inviting the audience to remember losses both past and present. The performance also features a set with 50 live goldfish! As part of our expanding programme this year we are also proud to include dance performance in Out of the Frying Pan with Amy Kinlon (Orchard Theatre Co.) and Deirdre Griffin (Pony Dance) presenting an exciting combination of two contemporary dance pieces exploring personal space and the absurd. Finally, The New Theatre’s programme also caters to all ages as Kidding Ensemble present their magical clown show COSAS, using the medium of clown performance to explore our relationship with technology and the modern age. This company of international artists brings The New Theatre a performance that is sure to thrill audiences both young and old.
With a myriad of forms, sets and ideas on offer in this yearʼs 10 Days in Dublin programme at The New Theatre there is bound to be something that catches your eye.
Further information can be found on www.10daysindublin.com
Out of the Frying Pan July 5 @ 6pm Tickets:€10
A combination of two exciting solo dance performances: On The Line choreographed by Amy Kinlon and performed by Roisin Laffan, fuses theatrical comedy with contemporary dance the work explores themes of unwillingness, boredom, and the desire to escape into an imaginary world. Pantastic!! choreographed and performed by Deirdre Griffin, tells the moving story of pantastic. A must and should see show for anyone who could be interested in pantasticness.
Just Us Four July 5-9 @8pm Tickets:€8/6 (2 for €15)
Just us Four deals with the subjectivity of memory, co-dependent relationships, and how bad choices can follow us for the rest of our lives. The play centres around two young women, cousins, one from a rural Irish town the other from Dublin city,both girls reared equally middle class, sheltered and bored. One day they meet and begin to reminisce about their old drug dealing sweethearts which they met as teenagers. As memory becomes murkier, the secrets become darker and cracks in their relationship begin to appear it become apparent that their memories and their men are not so far in the past as they thought.
Jarlath Regan July 6-7 @6pm Tickets:€10/9
Jarlath Regan (Russell Howard’s Good News, Craig Doyle Live, The Panel) has made his name by producing hours of “side-splitting stuff” (Metro) since 2007. This year is no exception. Fresh off the back of a whirlwind year he presents a show filled with the kind of honest to goodness “comedy genius” (Irish Times) that has lead Chortle to call his “the perfect tea time show”. If you’re looking for “hilarious change of pace” (Independent) or something to set you up nicely for the night ahead, come and see this man do his critically acclaimed thing.
“Had the audience shaking so violently with laughter they could probably have charged their phones” – Edinburgh Festival’s Magazine
Sluts July 8-11 @6pm Tickets:€10/7
Four girls in an unspecified area of Dublin are getting ready to go to a nightclub. What happens? Who knows? But they’re all a load of sluts … The play articulates the furores of teenage sexuality and relationships by exploring, over two consecutive nights, the dynamics between four friends: Amy, Emma, Rachel, and Anna. Amy is struggling with a break up and has sex with Andrew; Andrew is the boyfriend of Emma but only for a week; Rachel also had sex with Andrew the same night and everyone knows about it; Anna gets with a guy who looked weird but that’s not important. Sluts plays on the stereotyped view of girls’ friendships and explores the struggles they experience individually through the dynamic of their friendships. With its sharp, witty dialogue, cutting and aggressive put downs, and heart wrenching moments Sluts captures the frailty and, at times superficiality, of love and loss.
Diet of Worms July 10-11 @8pm Tickets:€8/7
Dublin comedy team Diet of Worms return with an exciting new live radio experience. Based on their 2010 play Strollinstown (nominated for the Fishamble New Writing Award), the Radio Hour is a mix of sketches and stories from West Dublin’s strangest suburb, in the grand tradition of classic radio comedy, complete with live sound effects. Diet of Worms have been regulars on the Irish and UK comedy circuits since 2006, taking shows to the Edinburgh and ABSOLUT Dublin Fringe Festivals, including last year’s sell out hit CULT.
COSAS July 12-14 @ 6pm Matinee July 14 @ 1pm Tickets:€10/8
A Clown Lives in a rudimentary and timeless place, one flooded with familiar apparatus, taken out of its context. Things has been distorted to the extreme, for the better or worse. Cosas is an inventor and a user, both satisfied and frustrated, out of necessity or just for fun, technology has become everything for her. Cosas is a 45-minute clown show, the first part of a clown trilogy exploring our relationship with objects, individuality and our intrinsic need for contact.
“A fine balance of funny and touching, weird and wonderful … Wholly universal thanks to Angelica Santander Castro’s stunning performance” – **** Metro Herald
Spurt July 12-14 @8pm Tickets:€10
Finn’s dad has just died. But so has his fish. And he fucking loved that fish. Remember when your fish died? Or your dog? Or your dad? Remember that wake you went to where you didn’t really know the person, so it was kinda awkward. You didn’t know what to say so you just said “sorry for your loss”, whatever that means? It doesn’t mean anything. But that wake makes you realise that mortality isn’t some fictional word, it’s real and we’ll all experience it. Pacman got 3 lives. But you just get one. And there’s no magic pellets to make the ghosts go away. A set of goldfish in clear plastic bags. A scissors. A snip. A splash. They die. Do you care?