Irish Theatre Showcase at the Adelaide Fringe

Irish Theatre Showcase at the Adelaide Fringe Festival
23 February - 16 March 2016

The GC - Showroom One, 223 Flinders Street, Adelaide

Supported by Culture Ireland as part of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme and Arts Project Australia’s Irish Theatre Showcase, three innovative theatre productions make their way from Ireland to take part in the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Beowulf: The Blockbuster (6pm - 7.10pm)
In the grand tradition of Irish storytelling, this poignant one-man extravaganza shows that heroism can come not only from cheating death but through facing it.

A clever transformation of the epic Old English poem Beowulf becomes the vehicle through which a dying man tries to explain to his young son that all heroes can’t survive all battles. Roaring tales of heroes slaying dragons and monsters are translated across generations into the language of Star Wars and blockbuster Hollywood movies with humor, sorrow, wit and warmth.

'Underneath' by Pat Kinevane (7.30pm - 9pm)
In this extraordinary piece of one-man theatre, celebrated Irish writer and actor Pat Kinevane delves deeper into the question of beauty - underneath the skin, underneath society, underneath our perceptions. Kinevane asks the penetrating questions: Is beauty really only skin-deep? Can we trust it? Does ugliness hide somewhere deeper?

This stunning new play is a blackly comic, rich and vivid tale of lives lived in secret, a testament to people living on the fringes of everyday life. Kinevane’s intensely physical performance shows him to be both a nimble and magnetic presence. As storyteller, he favours an arrestingly disjointed approach; as performer he combines the exotic and the earthy; and as political dramatist, he gravitates towards the marginalised, while always celebrating great humanity and humor in his tales.

'Little Thing, Big Thing' by Donal O'Kelly (9.30pm - 10.50pm)
A huge hit on tour in Ireland, UK, Europe and New York, now coming to Australia for the first time, Fishamble’s “Little Thing, Big Thing” is a darkly comic suspense thriller that can do no wrong.

An ex-con and a nun are pursued across Ireland holding a little piece of information that could trigger a big business crisis. Sorcha Fox and Donal O’Kelly play Martha and Larry, who take a high-octane jump into the brutal world of international energy skullduggery, and awaken passions they thought were dead. This finely executed piece of political theatre has the brisk tempo of an old-fashioned caper, but the sting and bite of a contemporary production. It’s another striking presentation from Fishamble, Ireland’s award-winning theatre company dedicated to discovering new work.