Gare St Lazare Players, who are presenting an adaptation of Beckett's Molloy at the International Bar at 6 p.m. until Saturday, have got a very influential fan: Beckett's original publisher, John Calder. You could almost call Calder a groupie, in fact, as he has now seen the show four times in different locations, and he deliberately scheduled a holiday in Ireland around seeing the show in Dublin. Rights to Beckett works are hard to get, but Calder was impressed enough with Gare St Lazare to let them go ahead. Which was one advantage of being based, like Calder, in Paris - but Judy Hegarty and Conor Lovett of St Lazare have since moved to London.
Talk of fostering international contacts leads us to the Theatre Shop, which Rough Magic's dynamic Siobhan Bourke dreamt up four years ago. The Shop, which this year takes place in the Coach House in Dublin Castle this day week, is an intensive networking session, which aims to foster international touring and co-production possibilities. Contact Martin Munroe at 016719278 for further details.
Now for a special event: as part of the Children's Festival, the Canadian company, Theatre Terrific, is presenting a performance of Scraping The Surface, a coming-of-age story about a boy with cerebral palsy, tomorrow at The Ark at 8 p.m. Tickets cost £15; all proceeds go to Cerebral Palsy Ireland.