I recently had a phone chat with Irish radio presenter Tommy Marren and one of the first things he remarks on are concerns over the recent fires in Tasmania. It seems so strange that someone on the other side of the world is in synch with our local news but Tommy is a current affairs presenter on Irish radio and is very much clued in to world news.
The name Marren finds one of its derivations in the name of the founder of one of the world’s oldest republics, San Marino. The founder was Saint Marinus a stonemason from Croatia.
Tommy, radio presenter, playwright and actor is a mason of sorts by trade too, but instead of stone he builds in words, all the more remarkably so, as he is not a big reader!
Tommy is a renaissance man from County Sligo, a place renowned for the fact it has one of the Gaelic athletic association’s most successful football and hurling clubs and also celebrated for being the home of one of Ireland’s, and the world’s greatest poets, WB Yeats.
Tommy bridges the stretch between sport and literature. He has made careers as a sports/news broadcaster and as a successful playwright
Tommy’s plays are striking a chord for expat Irish in Britain and the US, as well as those at home. Tommy left school in 1979 and had a dream to be involved in sport broadcasting. He sent off a demo tape to Midwest Irish radio and was picked up for a part time job there and after a while worked himself to station manager. He now hosts a daily current affairs program on the station and believes that although one of his first loves was sport it has its limitations for a reporter, whereas current affairs encompasses almost everything. This skill with radio communication would see Tommy excel at another type of communication that of drama. Tommy has written various sketches and pantomimes with fellow radio host john Dugan, the natural progression of this was writing larger and more challenging pieces.
Tommy’s first major play was written a few years back, originally conceived as a charity fund raiser. The play went well beyond its expectations and performed to sold out venues both in Ireland and overseas. ‘The Banshee of Crokey Hill’ tells the story of family secrets and superstitions and how these impact, and like the Banshee, return to haunt. The play has elements of comedy, and tragedy but also invokes some forgotten elements of Ireland’s past such as the skill of brush dancing.
After this production Tommy went on to co-write with Terry Riley, (a writer who had visited Tasmania and sees it’s many similarities to Ireland), a play based on Terry’s book ‘On a Wing and a Prayer’. The musical play chronicles the life of Ireland’s Monsignor James Horan whose foresight, in an Ireland beset with emigration, was instrumental in helping retain and attract people to the rural west, particularly to Knock Shrine, which had seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Terry had contacted Tommy on the 100th anniversary of Monsignor Horan’s birthday suggesting something should be done to commemorate the great man. The play, with its cast of 130, has been unable to tour outside of Ireland as yet but with the possibility of a revamped script and a cast scale down that may be something to look out for in the future. Tommy concedes that a man with Monsignor Horan’s foresight may not be seen again simply because now there is too much red tape to cut through to achieve anything.
Most recently Tommy has written and acted in his third play, ‘The Real McCoy’; although it features familiar themes of Irish life in the 60s when superstition and secrets were part of life, it also makes use of great comic timing to deliver a more fully comedic play and one with a happy ending. This play has travelled to the UK and the USA and has dates pencilled in the calendar up to April, also it will perform in Dublin’s large Olympia Theatre such an invitation speaks much for the plays success.
Tommy is happy the play has provided ‘bums on seats’, and would much rather have a happy audience and set of players, than a critically acclaimed play. Especially poignant was one woman telling Tommy she hadn’t been so happy (after seeing the play) in 14 years, when she had been given the news she would be able to obtain a kidney transplant.
Tommy is happy too that the play is attracting a younger audience, who can witness a comedy that doesn’t use derogatory language to get laughs but achieves the same result with a much more wholesome dialogue.
Some of the inspiration for the various Irish witticisms in the play was sourced by Tommy from ‘Ireland’s Own’, a magazine that has been in publication for over 100 years. The magazine includes two pages of Irish wit and phrases and that is where Tommy authenticated some of the colloquialisms for the people of the time, many of which he recalled from his own childhood.
One performance night when Tommy was observing the audience from the peep-hole backstage he saw a lady that seemed to be enjoying the play. She was closing her eyes and listening intently. After the play she came up to Tommy congratulating and informing him she was an Australian actor who had been in Neighbours and was possibly interested in producing the play. It impressed Tommy that his play had gained interest as far away as Australia.
You can obtain all three of Tommy’s plays in DVD format from http://www.crokeyplays.com/buy_now.html.
Paula Xiberras
