It's Jazz and Blues, the order of the day this weekend as Ardhowen's Jazz and Blues Festival swings into action. It's a time when local enthusiasts have the opportunity to see great bands and hear great music. This year the Festival opens tomorrow night Thursday 5th June with the astounding young Irish blues band 'The Deans', featuring the most amazing young blues/rock guitarist in Ireland today. On Friday night the 6th June, the excellent Swedish Jazz Kings take the spotlight.
These superb exponents of Chicago and New Orleans Jazz from the 1920's will feature music from such artists as Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller etc. The superb British trombonist Roy Williams is a special guest for the night and that's a real treat in itself.
The final night of the Festival on Saturday 7th June, The Red Hot Rhythmakers from Melbourne in Australia are guaranteed to blow the socks off you. It's not often, a nine piece band is seen in Ardhowen's Gallery Bar, but this one, with its programme of big band and other works from the 1920's and 1930's including pieces from King Oliver, Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington, promises a great finish to the Festival. All performances start at 9.00pm.
SUMMER COMEDY
Ardhowen's summer season of comedy plays, opens with a real classic of the Irish theatre, when Island Productions present J.M. Synge's classic comedy 'The Playboy Of The Western World' for seven performances. Opening next Thursday 12th June, it runs until Saturday 14th and again the following week from Wednesday 18th to Saturday 21st June.
An interesting mix of realism, poetic dialogue and great moments of comedy, the play is set near a tiny village on the wild coast of County Mayo in the early 1900's. It's an early autumn evening in Flaherty's shebeen, when in comes a young frightened and exhausted young man called Christy Mahon with a tale that he is on the run after killing his father.
After the initial shock at this announcement, the locals in the bar seem much more interested in hearing all the gory details of this villainous deed than condemning its morality. Pegeen, the pub owners daughter who runs the bar is immediately attracted to him, despite the fact she is already betrothed to timid local farmer Sean Keogh whom she has no love for and has already ordered her gowns for the arranged match.
Christy, who's ability to tell a great story, enchants all the other females around including the Widow Quinn, a local woman of dubious reputation, who uses all her cunning and experience to seduce him. Pegeen however is a feisty young woman and is determined to see her off, and to have Christy for herself. Despite Sean Keogh's desperate attempts at collusion with the Widow to thwart Pegeen, things are about to take an unexpected turn.
Island Productions have assembled a strong cast including Caroline Stenson, Eamon McFarland, Martin Quinn, Christine Irvine, Stefan Dunbar, Nadia Stenson, Paul Doherty and others for what should be a well staged, entertaining and comic production.
