THE MAN who brought you The Love Hungry Farmer is back! One of Ireland’s most popular performers, Des Keogh, returns to Galway with a new comedy based on the work of one of Ireland’s best known storytellers.
John B Keane’s Confessions Of An Irish Publican sees the lives of the inhabitants of Knockanee brilliantly evoked by Kerry publican Martin MacMeer - proprietor of Journey’s End pub.
Having premiered off-Broadway at New York’s Irish Rep Theatre, this hilarious one-man show sees the inimitable Keogh switch from character to character as he brings the Confessions to life. Come to Journey’s End to meet MacMeer, the parish priest, the Reverend Mother, feisty Dublin woman Grace, and many more…
Speaking from his Dublin home ahead of his Galway visit, Keogh expanded on what audiences can expect from the show.
“Martin McMeer, the main character, is a publican just as John B himself was, and I suspect a lot of the incidents and characters are based on people John B saw coming through his own door,” he tells me. “He was a great observer and listener and those qualities certainly come through in this play. In the play McMeer talks about the various eccentric customers and characters he has to deal with, and a good part of the story revolves around his encounters with several women.”
Keogh delves further into McMeer’s occasionally ill-starred meetings with the opposite sex.
“When he is about 40 he falls for this 18-year-old convent schoolgirl so that’s problematic for him. Then there is a lady solicitor from Dublin who sets her cap at him and he has to do his utmost to evade her clutches and there is also the formidable Mother Superior from the convent who he has a couple of run-ins with. I must say it’s fun for me playing the female characters as well in the story!”
Keogh compares the Confessions with his previous one-man Keane show, Love Hungry Farmer.
“I would say this show has much more emphasis on the comedy,” says Keogh. “Love Hungry Farmer was funny as well of course but there was also an underlying sadness because you realised this was quite a lonely character.
“That element doesn’t feature in this play and it’s really much more about the inherent humour to be found in the scrapes Martin McMeer finds himself in and the colourful characters that he has to deal with. There is also that wonderful richness and earthiness of language that is a feature of John B’s writing.”
Now 74, Keogh remains as spry as ever and shows no signs of exchanging ‘the boards’ for the sedate comforts of pipe-and-slippers.
“I have as much energy as enthusiasm as ever,” he declares. “I’m looking forward to bringing the play out on tour again and coming to Galway. We go to Connemara every year for our holidays so the west has a special place in my affections, I feel I’m partly a Galway man at this stage!”
Confessions Of An Irish Publican is at the Town Hall for two nights only, on Thursday May 28 and Friday 29 at 8pm. For tickets contact 091 - 569777.
