This will be a short blog. today. It’s party time. Celebrating our grandson’s 21st birthday, a young man who has given us such joy through those years and continues to impress. So when I finish this chat with you I will be blowing up balloons, warming sausages, tasting profiteroles, securing king prawns and peeling grapes. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to say I not only love my family but I like them too.
I’d been advised to shop on-line for party food at the Marks and Spencer site but I was too late, couldn’t be delivered in time. I phoned head office and asked for advice and was told, why not visit one of our special food halls and you’ll be able to choose what you want. Good idea. Phoned Boucher Road, very nice woman answered, ‘certainly come along we have all sorts of party food, come about 12.30 Saturday and I’ll walk round with you.’ Well, as it happened my daughter Susie and I arrived at 12 noon and had our shopping done by 12.30.
Asked for our lady who arrived and we thanked her for being so kind with her offer of help. We chatted. She was working late last night and started again at nine this morning. How did she relax with hours like that? ” I crochet,” she told us. Well that heralded a long conversation between herself and Susie, both crocheters and the ideas and recommendations flew between them. We’ve been invited to visit her classes and meet others who also love this craft.
If I had ordered on line none of this would have happened. It just proves personal shopping and face to face engagement is best.
OH CANDY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS?
Candy Divine has a new pet.
This terrifying snake took up residence on Candy’s porch and scared the wits out of her. Worse still, it then disappeared! Her daughter in law then found it in the bathroom and sent the following picture.
Picture two turned out to be a joke!
What Happens When You Follow Your Dream?
Tara Lynne O’Neill excels as Shirley Valentine at the Lyric Theatre until 5th October 2019
How many of us women would like to turn our back on routine and break away on an adventure all of our own? In your dreams! One Belfast woman makes her dreams come true. We learn about Mrs. Joe Bradshaw, a 42-year old mother of two grown children, trapped in the mundane routine of being ‘just’ a housewife. She meets a school friend with a stretch limo who’s dressed to the nines – how come she made it? She was a high class hooker, that’s how. They go to the Europa and it emphasises to Mrs. Bradshaw how she longs for a life of fulfilment and fun but, when she gets the chance she almost blows it. When her best friend asks her to come on holiday to a Greek island for two weeks it’s a ‘will I won’t I’ sort of scenario but she packs her bag and heads off. And the transition brings out the real girl and she sheds Bradshaw to become Shirley Valentine.
This play by Willie Russell is for one actress only, almost two hours on stage with non- stop dialogue so it takes a pretty special woman to achieve the success Tara Lynne O’Neill enjoyed on opening night and since. Although the original was set in Liverpool Oisin Kearney has transposed the setting to Belfast in the late 80s with all the local references and our unique and fast speech patterns.
Does this work? A few traditionalists thought not but the vast majority of the audience were perfectly comfortable and the laughter ricocheted round the auditorium whereas, in the second act the feeling was more subdued as Shirley found love and conversation with Costas the waiter and she delights in telling us all the most intimate details of their coming together. What woman wouldn’t be impressed with a lover who kisses her stretch marks and says she wears them like a badge of office, he does go on a bit and the audience is delighted when she looks at us and utters the immortal words: “Aren’t men full of shit.”
This is the magic of this play, the actor’s rapport with the audience and Tara Lynne O’Neill has it down to a fine art. From the minute she walks into her kitchen she has us captivated. When she packs her suitcase determined to leave her husband to fend for himself for two weeks, we cheer and clap. We approve when she leaves her suitcase on the revolving belt watching it disappear into the black hole en route to the airplane home, she suddenly rebels knowing if she goes back she will disappear into the black hole she has escaped and we cheer Shirley Valentine as she turns her back on Mrs. Bradshaw. She hasn’t really fallen in love with Costas, she tells us, she has fallen in love with life.
An intriguing set, beautiful and subtile lighting, sympathetic direction and excellent acting all go to make a very satisfying night of theatre, all the more impressive as the entire company had just lost one of their best friends when assistant director Julie Maxwell died late last month.
Tara paid a short and emotional tribute and we stood as one of Julie’s favourite songs was played. It was a fitting end to a very professional night.
More at www.lyrictheatre.co.uk
