From Disco Pigs to adapting Sing Street for the stage, Enda Walsh tells all

Irish Post

4 hours ago

ENDA WALSH is an Irish writer, playwright and screenwriter.
He cast Cillian Murphy in his first play Disco Pigs and recently worked with him on the film Small Things Like These.
In his latest project, Enda takes us back to the 80s with an adaptation of his book, Sing Street at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, West London.
He chatted to CLAUDIA REDMOND about the show, being mistaken for a Corkonian, and what it was like being taught by Roddy Doyle.
Enda Walsh has adapted his book Sing Street for the stage
So what are you up to?
We are here today at a rehearsal showing of Sing Street. I think it is pretty joyful: it is set in 1984-1985 in Ireland. A group of school kids put a band together, they go from their school uniforms to dressing up like Duran Duran. It is pretty chaotic but they end up finding their voices. It is a story about friendship and community. It's a beautiful film that John Carney made. It's a beautiful story and a real honour to put it on stage. It is bitter sweet at times, it's all the Irish stuff, it's quite chaotic, funny, a little bit sad: that sort of vibe.
What was your look back in 1985?
The thing about the 1980s was every sort of three months there seemed to be like a different style of dress. I went through the early electronic sort of stuff, Duran Duran, Gary Numan all that sort of thing, and Human League. But by 1985 I was probably into The Smiths, so there were a lot of cardigans.
Roddy Doyle was one of your teachers at school. What was he like and was he strict?
He was an extraordinary teacher. Roddy got us all into English, I turned out a writer but there were other people in my class who were probably better writers: I just stuck with it. It seemed like we did the curriculum and then he opened up this cabinet at the end of the room, and it was full of these books. A lot of American literature. He introduced us to a whole range of different writers, and it was true we used to sort of bum cigarettes off one another in the yard and talk about Charles Bukowski or whoever it was.
What is your favourite Roddy Doyle book?
When I read Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha he talks about the estate Kilbarrack being built that was just behind my house. So I know that terrain really well as a very young boy. It's a beautiful book: the story of a relationship breaking down, a divorce, but through a kid's point of view.
What are your Irish roots?
I am a Dubliner but a lot of people in Ireland think that I'm from Cork because I started making work in Cork.
I had a play called Disco Pigs when I was a younger man, and a Dublin man moving to Cork was a bit of a strange move.
They gave us a civic reception, and when the Cork people found out that I was a Dublin man they almost took it away from me.
There was a bit of 'What!? You're actually a Dub! Jesus!' But I loved that city. Cork is an amazing City, it's always been great, the scale of it is fantastic.
The shape of it is like an amphitheatre, so to me as a Dubliner moving down there it was always very theatrical.
Cork people themselves because it is the second city they've got a lot to prove, so I've always loved their attitude.
Cork star Cillian Murphy
You're well known for giving a famous Cork man, Cillian Murphy, his start. How did that come about?
Cillian was in a band not unlike the Sing Street guys. He was 18 at the time and in a band called The Sons of Mr Green Genes.
They were like kids just like these fellas here, a fantastic band and they were just about to be signed to an Acid-Jazz label and I had a play called Disco Pigs that we were casting.
I wrote it for Eileen Walsh this great Cork actor, and she was very young at the time, she was 18, but I had seen her in a play and thought she was extraordinary.
Then we were looking for this guy and we were all obsessed with Cillian in this band.
He just had this magnetism and it just turned out that he could act, so I auditioned him, gave him the role. We've made a ton of work since: he's just got something.
What is the next project you have in mind to work on together?
We always want to work with one another. We made a movie last year: 'Small Things Like These.'
When you work with friends the shorthand is there, it's quite joyful and fun and I'm sure we will work again together.
The cast of Sing Sing (Pic: Richard Southgate)
What is your favourite theatre in Ireland?
It's just about to be pulled down, and it's barely a theatre.
I love Galway a lot, and I've premiered a lot of my own shows in the Black Box in Galway, which is in a car park.
I remember bringing producers from around the world, they would come to see my shows and they would walk through this car park asking, 'what are you doing here?'
But the venue itself has an amazing atmosphere and that is my favourite place. I have made a ton of shows in there and now they are pulling it down which is super sad.
How do you think theatre is doing in Ireland at the moment?
I don't live there, but I go back. We've always had incredibly strong actors but I think now we've got really great directors, so I think the work has become really quite dangerous and expressive and unusual, and I'm really proud of that.
It's changed a lot in the last 15 years, a lot of young companies. But it's hard work. It's hard to keep it going I think for all of them.
But it's always been like that. Even when I was a boy in my twenties it was always a difficult profession to be in and to stay in. I am excited though when I go back and see these really quite arresting productions.
The Irish are taking over London at the moment, with Conor McPherson having back to back productions at the Old Vic with The Brightening Air and Girl from the North Country and yourself of course. Are you surprised?
Yes and Mark O'Rowe at the Kiln Theatre with Reunion.
When I play in America and they say 'Why are there so many Irish writers?' I think it has to do with our geography.
I think it has to do with the fact that we're on the edge of Europe so a lot of the work is to do with identity and self-analysis, about who we are.
Who we are in relation to Britain used to be the old plays, or who we are in relation to America, a whole load of plays about that.
Back in the day in the 1700s, back in the villages you had the Seanchaí in the town who would stand up and proclaim who we were at the time and talk out these stories.
It's all about where we are, who we are, what we're doing, what we want to do, and that's a very island mentality.
Irish people have always been like that. That is why there are a ton of writers, poets, and musicians.
What is your favourite memory as a child back in Ireland?
I grew up in Dublin and on a Sunday we would go on a walk around Howth: it's very beautiful.
If anyone is in Dublin they should take the DART out there, get off at the harbour and there is a great chipper at the end of the harbour.
I have had so many conversations with my mother walking up there, and she used to take all of us.
I still do it with my brother or friends, it is a ritual thing.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
It is tricky, but when I was in Dublin in my twenties and starting out, I worked with friends at the back of pubs, or the centre of pubs.
In Cork we were given the Triskel Arts Centre to do shows and it was just trying out material.
Over the course of three years we got our Arts Council funding and we took it very seriously.
Young people just need to persevere and have a go at it. A lot of it is luck, most of it is luck.
I have been incredibly fortunate. You have to be ready for the luck so you have to show up a little bit.
What's your next project?
I'm doing a lot of film at the moment. I am working for MGM on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a new version of it, which is really fun, so I'm writing that at the moment, so my head is in that incredibly weird, dark, funny world.
Sing Street runs from the July 8 to August 23 at the Lyric Hammersmith. Click here for tickets.
See More: Cillian Murphy, Disco Pics, Enda Walsh, Sing Street