A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Maybe it was the nostalgia – all the references to Italia ’90, the Trip to Tipp, the West’s Awake – or just that it excavated the touchstones of our younger days.

As the sun shone brightly outside last Sunday, in the darkness of the Mick Lally Theatre, a privileged audience was transfixed in the shadows, transported back through the sands of time.

We were watching Shamtown – Act 2, an hour or so of drama that will live long in the memory; officially a ‘work in production’ that deserves a much bigger platform for the world to see.

Shamtown is the work of Ollie Jennings; and this was indeed the Second Act, because many of those in attendance on Sunday had seen the first part of this social and musical history when it was staged at the same intimate venue two years ago.

It’s hard to encapsulate what Ollie and theatre director Andrew Flynn have created because it’s difficult to put magic into words.

In simple terms, it’s the story of Ireland in the eighties and nineties; more fundamentally it’s the story of Galway – and Tuam in particular – told through the lives and the songs of the Saw Doctors.

It’s part-musical, part-social commentary; it’s hilarious and it’s heartbreaking. You’d laugh out loud – and still it transpired that several grown men were holding back the tears in the quiet darkness of Druid’s home.

We all thought we were the only one caught up in the emotional rollercoaster through the halcyon days of our youth, when of course most of us had been on the same journey – and memories prompted the same reaction.

True to form, while Ollie’s brilliant writing and poignant memories are at the core of this – as is the music of the band he’s shared the journey with from the start – there’s no mention of him at all in the drama. Except if you know him at all, you’d know that nobody else could have told the story.

Shamtown – Act 2 is described as a work in development; a cast of eight dressed in black, bobbing and weaving in words and steps across the stage – picking up each other’s threads to paint a large canvas of a glorious time.