From Enda Kenny's standing-still genius to a new supergroup featuring Daniel O'Donnell, Cliff Richard and 50 Cent, here's a selection of highlights from the 2010 arts calendar (in a parallel universe), writes KEVIN GILDEA
JANUARY LEAD MAN
Enda Kenny breaks the human-statue standing-still record at the World Standing Still Championships on Grafton Street. Enda goes into the Guinness Book of Records after he poses as a statue of a man with a lead-coloured suit, lead-coloured shoes and a lead-looking head for 365 days in a row – breaking the original record by 364 whole days.
The unique skill that allows this lead-like being to stand unprecedentedly still is that he does actually move about (and even sneaks home for regular snoozes!) but nobody notices, so he gets away with it. Standing-still genius.
FEBRUARY ARTY FACTS
Eamon Gilmore releases an audio cassette of his greatest speeches, called A Beautiful Mouth. It is full of endlessly bejewelled words, quips and putdowns lobbed glitteringly across the floor and exploding uselessly at the feet of the people with power.
Of most interest to embryonic poet tongues eager to follow Eamon’s journey of eloquence will be the early speeches. A loquacious example is the speech a young Gilmore delivers to his mother on the occasion of her requesting that he stop playing football and come in and eat his dinner.
Eamon (or Wordy, as he was called by the other boys back then) provides a powerful and inspired refutation: “Once again my mother has the nerve to stand opposite me and ask me to come in for my dinner. I ask her why? Why should I come in for my dinner? Does she answer? No! For she knows – as well as I do – that she has no answer!
“Why should I come in for my dinner? After all, it’s not dark yet and Joan Burton is still out with her hula-hoop (hula-hooping about or whatever it is she does, ha ha).”
(Cue laughter from Joan and the gang.)
“I have supplied numerous requests for an answer as to why I should go in to dinner, and what does this mother answer me? ‘Because I said so.’”
(He witheringly and disparagingly repeats her line.)
“‘Because I said so’ – that’s all this mother has to offer: ‘Because I said so!’ This is typical of the arrogance of this mother – disconnected as she is from the people – the people playing football out on the street!
“Oh! There is one other answer she offers: ‘I told you a thousand times before’ – as if the reiteration of useless information renders it in some way useful! ‘I won’t tell you again,’ she might add. Well, Mr Mother, that’s not good enough!
“She stands there telling me what’s good for me. Well, if I was her I’d be more concerned with what’s good for her!
“It’s just not good enough any more, and the ordinary people of this country – the footballers, the hula-hoopers, the snotty people – won’t put up with it any more. They’ve had enough!
“All we have had from this mother are delaying tactics. I am on record as having repeatedly asked for a football and what reply do I get? ‘Ask your father!’ That’s the very lack of responsibility we are dealing with here. Mother, all I can say is: your days as leader of my life are coming to an end. In conclusion, I’d like to say ‘I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?’”
MARCH CUT-BACKING THE ARTS FESTIVAL
This will be the year of the arts cutbacks. RTÉ will save money by broadcasting radio drama on the TV while radio arts output will consist of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s classical music performed by a man whistling. The Angelus will be extended to fill a two-hour slot.
March sees a new arts festival that showcases money-saving. Highlights include a Brian Lenihan-choreographed version of the ballet Swan Pond and a new version of Frank McGuinness’s play, Observe the Son of Ulster Marching Toward the Somme, translated by Lenihan.
APRIL THE PASSION OF TOMMY JESUS TIERNAN
The O2 has to be knocked down and replaced by the O6 in order to accommodate the biggest show of this or any year (2011, for example). Six million tickets sell out 20 minutes before they go on sale. The show is a three-act: Despair, Horror and Peace.
Act One:
Tommy Tiernan experiences a dark night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsemane, near Naas.
Tommy knows that to fulfil his destiny something really bad has to happen. He has written some material about a group of people that will bring down unparalleled opprobrium upon his thorned brain. Doubt and criticism assail him as Joe Duffy’s radio show is broadcast from Tommy’s own head. People ring in delivering endless negative comments about Tommy and his “so-called” comedy. There is one caller who rings in full of praise for the big red fellow and his delicious goodness, but it turns out that this caller thinks the show is about carrots. Tommy is driven to the edge of despair in a car fuelled by Joe Duffy’s eh-huhs, ah-has and uh-uhs.
Act Two:
The second act takes place on The Late Late Show, where Tommy must fulfil God’s destiny and insult the people into demanding his death. He does his infamous routine about people who have two legs, two arms and a head. There is outraged uproar as people with two legs, two arms and a head call around to The Late Late Show in a many-legged, many-armed and many-headed mob. They are outraged that Tommy has decided to pick on them, and they demand that Tommy be crucified live on air, on the transmitter tower out in Donnybrook. The idea of the image of Tommy being crucified on the structure that enables the broadcast of the said image has the nation’s cultural commentators salivating from their idea glands.
In a desperate attempt to impose civility, Pontius Tubridy tries to save Tommy by offering the public the chance to crucify Brendan O’Carroll instead. Not a knob’s chance in hell! It’s Tommy the people want to see nailed.
Tommy dies and the screen goes black. People realise that they have done something terrible and then switch over to Sky.
Act Three:
Tommy finally ascends into heaven, where he experiences eternal peace by making the bongy sounds for The Angelus. Curtains Call.
JUNE ARTS INITIATIVE!!!
Minister for Arts Martin Cullen unveils a wonderful new initiative. He says that he asked himself what one thing would truly help artists through these difficult coming years, and in a flash of inspiration he conceived the initiative that will see dancers, actors and painters go into State-funded storage for the next five years until the economy is doing better and, as the Minister puts it, “can afford the type of messing around that artists excel at”.
A specially designated Artists Storage Facility will be constructed in one of the many, many unsold blocks of flats that make up depopulated Dublin.
Artists will be injected with sleeping syrup and placed in gaily decorated crates. They will be woken once a month by specially trained former shop assistants and fed with a high-sustenance smoothie made from oats, eggs, orange juice and five-star reviews, all mashed together with the force of an audition that’s not going well.
SEPTEMBER
SUPERGROUP IS SUPER
Last year saw many so-called supergroups form from elements of other musical entities: The Crooked Vultures featured a Queen of the Stone Age, a Pink Floyd survivor and that Dave Grohl guy, while Jack White joined supergroups as if there was no other type of group available to join.
The latest supergroup sees Daniel O’Donnell and Cliff Richard team up with 50 Cent to form Two Uneasy Men. They release an album called Songs about Gansies and Drive-Bys.
Daniel and Cliff duet on such numbers as I’ve Got Lilies La La La and Lily Love. However, it is the songs featuring 50 Cent, together with the gentlemen, that really take the excitement biscuit and feed it to you: songs like I Love My Mammy (But Your Mammy’s a Hoe), There’s a Little Old Lady Waitin’ for Me – An’ Am Gonna Get Me Some Ol’ Lady Pussy, and, best of all, Drive-By Shoooing. This proves to be the highlight of the album – a moving and threatening duet between Daniel and 50 that begins with 50 laying it down hard before Daniel’s voice pillows in like a jumper on a washing line in an ad for fabric softener:
50 Cent: Yo – I drove by the 7-11 at 11 minutes past seven/ slow down – rolled down ma window like it a pair a panties/ see your gang hangin’ like a bunch of ol’ aunties / then I leaned out – knew what I was doin’/ I took aim and next minute I was . . .
Daniel: Shooin’ . . . shooing, shooing them./ Shoo! Shoo! Get along you scamps of mine/ it’s way past your bedtime/ I’ll tuck you in – read you a night nursery rhyme/ Shoo shoo – I was shooing them/ ooooohhh Mammy . . .
50 Cent: F**ker! Mother . . .
Daniel: . . . Fecker!!!
At this point, guest vocalist Paul Gogarty from the Green Party joins in with “F**k you! F**k you!” To top it all off, Jay-Z lays down a sleepy track and, with some final rockin’, rollin’ and ridin’, they all head off on the many-miled journey to morning town.
DECEMBER
REGULATOR REVIEWS
The world of theatre celebrates as the former financial regulator (Mr Neary) celebrates his first year as the theatre critic of The Irish Times. In that time every single play has received an excellent review from the eye-glass-is-half-full Mr Regulator. “The theatre has never been in a healthier state,” he announces.
Kevin Gildea appears tonight on the first of a new topical panel show series, Thats All We Have Time For (10.15pm, RTÉ 1)
