On The Town: A jester, a groom and a chorus of clowns showed no mercy. Jester Jacinta Sheerin from Inchicore, roared when one man saying hello, politely shook her hand. He tried to pull away but she held on for dear life. Then Caoimhín Corrigan, chair of the National Association of Youth Drama and arts officer with Carlow County Council, found himself agreeing to be married - in fun, of course.
Guests to a party upstairs in Temple Bar's Project, laughed and applauded as members of the upcoming Bards in the Yard theatre initiative ran riot through the venue.
"It's going to be total bedlam but a creative masterpiece," said Rebecca Bartlett, artistic director of Bards in the Yard. The artistic troupe will appear in Dublin Castle on Friday and Saturday, July 18th and 19th, as the culmination of the National Festival of Youth Theatres 2003. This event will follow a week-long series of workshops and activities and "it will be a celebration of everything the young people have done," said Bartlett.
More than 100 young people from youth theatre groups from all over Ireland will be taking part in this week of bedlam and creative endeavour.
The "rakishly handsome" (even though he says so himself) Tommy Tiernan, said he got his first real opportunity to perform in Galway Youth Theatre in the early 1980s. "It's important to be able to live your life imaginatively . . . Galway Youth Theatre gave people who had ambitions to be artists the opportunity to start . . . It gave all of us who had no map about how to start the journey the opportunity to begin."
Cabaret singer Camille O'Sullivan and Liam Halligan from Quare Hawks Theatre Company in Monaghan joined the madness. Madeline Boughton, of the British Council, also attended, before she heads south for the West Cork Chamber Music Festival where she's particularly pleased the young group, the Smith Quartet, will be playing.
Admission to the Bards in the Yard performances in Dublin Castle will be free. The organisers say to expect plenty of fun, activity and noise.