A year to remember

The Arts:A new play at the Peacock, a first novel reissued and a story turned into a film - it's suddenly all happening for Billy Roche

IT HAS BEEN a memorable year for the Wexford writer, Billy Roche. His novel, Tumbling Down, has been published in a new limited-edition hardback to celebrate its 21st birthday; one of the stories from his collection, Tales From Rainwater Pond, has been made into a feature film; and his new play, Lay Me Down Softly, is opening at the Peacock Theatre tonight.

"It's an unbelievable time for me," he says. "I was in my room for seven years, planning all these things - and they all came on the same day, nearly."

It is, in fact, seven years since a Roche play premiered at the Peacock. On Such As Wetook place in a barber's shop; the new piece is set in the boxing booth of a travelling fairground.

"I like to establish some sort of visual thing for the audience before the play begins," he explains, "so that they can enter a world that they may not have seen before. A world they may even be reluctant to enter. It's a man's world. All of my plays are set in men's worlds."

In this world, of course, little is as it seems. The boxing ambience, however, is one Roche knows well. His father was a professional boxer and his grandfather, Jem Roche, was a contender for the world heavyweight title in 1908.

Roche senior was a musician who owned a pub in Wexford. "When he walked into the room, a light shone out of him and people would go: 'Yeah - he's here. Now we can have some fun.' He never got annoyed. There were lots of times when he should have got annoyed with guys who were messing in the pub. He didn't. But when he told them to leave, they left. I suppose that's in my psyche somewhere - the warrior has already done it all. He doesn't have to prove he's a man.

"But, of course, the play's not about that. It's never about that. Well . . . I'm the wrong person to ask what the play's about. It's about an hour and a half long, as Dylan Thomas would say."

He admits, though, that his favourite themes are all in there. Love, the lack of love, and the search for love. What happens when two men fall in love with one woman. Like all his plays, Lay Me Down Softlyalso features music. "Music is everywhere in my work," he says. "I couldn't live without it."

He is delighted about the cast, many of whom he has worked with before. He has also worked with the director, Wilson Milam. He has stories about them all - Gary Lydon, Aisling O'Sullivan, Ruth Negga, Lalor Roddy, Barry Ward - but makes special mention of Joe Doyle, who is making his debut.

"Joe is Tony's son, and Tony played the lead role in The Cavalcaders," he says. "Joe was 10 then . . . he spent every night of that summer backstage, and I taught him to play guitar to keep him busy. Got him a gig recently, actually. He's a brilliant singer-songwriter who could earn his living through music if he wanted to."

ROCHE HIMSELF WASa singer in his own band, and says he still sings and plays piano every day. "I don't write many songs any more - but now and again one slips out."

Nowadays, his performing life revolves around readings of his work, but music still has a strong hold on him. "I was in the Spiegeltent recently with Camille O'Sullivan," he says. "It was amazing. It was scary, actually. First of all she comes on with a band, and - well - she's good, you know? Then there was a transvestite group. Then a comedy juggler. Then an anarchic punk group came on. And I'm thinking, 'I've gotta step out and read?'"

He needn't have worried. He read a chapter from Tumbling Down, and the crowd loved it. Then he accompanied O'Sullivan on the guitar as she sang Sayonara Street, one of the three songs he wrote for The Cavalcaders- and that went down so well that there are plans to bring out a CD.

The recent re-issue of his novel, Tumbling Down, came out of this same open, unorthodox approach to creativity. It's not simply a new edition, but effectively a whole new re-imagining. Why would an author do that?

"Ah, you know, it's precious to me," Roche says. "It's a little holy well that I started with, and I didn't know anything about writing back then. I did the best I could at the time. But after 20 years of writing I realised that I wasn't happy to leave it behind me. I wanted to go back and give it a facelift. A lick of paint. I thought I might turn it around in a month. It took me three years."

Working at night-time - "nobody was paying me for it, and nobody wanted it" - he recast practically every line. It was a real labour of love, but it was worth it. The result is a joy to read, not only for its gentle, elegiac story of a boy growing up in a Wexford pub, but for the edition's top-notch paper, crystal-clear typeface and quirky line drawings. The cover features a photograph of two men playing accordion and harmonica in a smoky bar. "That's my father," he says, running his hand affectionately over the image. "They were a great duo, those two. They had a terrific sense of comic timing. 'We're the Symbolics,' one would say. Then, quick as a flash, the other would cut in: 'I'm Sym. . .'"

Whatever about the boxing skills, Roche has inherited his father's ability to deliver a line in absolutely deadpan fashion at precisely the right moment. No doubt it helps explain his success as an actor - a path most playwrights fear to tread. It must also endear him to the young writers he now spends much of his time mentoring in Co Wexford.

"I absolutely love it," he says. "We bring out a book every year, and I'm hoping that it will become more sophisticated as each year goes by and that it will be a beacon for young writers from Wexford."

Eoin Colfer, the hugely successful children's writer, has said precisely the same thing about Tumbling Down.

"It's the reason I'm a writer," Roche says, laughing. "Well, Eoin's father and mother were artists in Wexford and I gave them an early manuscript of the book. I'm sure I must have addled them - it was in an awful state. But very kindly, they took it. Eoin says that his father said to him: 'Now, I've a manuscript in there belonging to Billy Roche - and none of you are to touch it or pick it up or anything like that, because I'll have to give it back to him.'"

Young Eoin, already showing the spirit of adventure which informs his books, snuck in and read it anyhow.

"I suppose it just propelled something in him," says Roche. "It gave him confidence. That's what it's all about, isn't it? We inspire people to do something; and to do it better."

Sometimes, though, writing is just a matter of slogging away and hoping for the best. Such was the case with Roche's collection of stories, Tales From Rainwater Pond. "Again I was annoying people," he says with a wry smile. "Nobody wanted these stories - and it took me seven years to write them. Six months, almost to the day, each story took. I was broke at that stage, and it was beginning to look as if not only did nobody want them, but nobody was going to publish them."

Bizarrely, publishers kept telling him the pieces were too "melancholy". "The word kept coming up to hit me like a mallet between the eyes - and I was left really dumbfounded," he says. "I love melancholy. Think of Joyce's Dubliners. Death in Venice. Madame Bovary."

PRETTY OUTRAGEOUScompany to put his stories into, you might think - but only if you haven't read them. Tales From Rainwater Pondis a superbly crafted collection of interlinked narratives which could hold its own in any company.

"The pond haunts each story," Roche explains. "That's all I knew when I started, that it would be a kind of silent witness to each story - sometimes in a minor way, sometimes in a major way."

Before Tales From Rainwater Pondhad even appeared in print, playwright and director Conor McPherson took a shine to one of the stories and announced his intention to make it into a film.

"Conor can do any story he wants to - I'm sure his drawers are full of them," says Roche. "So it was very flattering that he picked Table Manners, and put himself on the line to get it made. That's a huge commitment. If you want to direct a film, you better think again because your life is on the line for two and a half years."

The film, starring Ciarán Hinds and Aidan Gillen, is being edited and will appear in the spring.

McPherson has given the story a new name - The Eclipse- and several new twists, but Roche is sanguine about the changes. "I slightly stepped aside in the end because I had already written my story . . . Conor knows the language of film, he needed to make it his own." In any case - Roche grins - he plays a cameo role, so he ended up in the middle of it anyhow. "Ah, it has been a wonderful year. You couldn't write it. You couldn't even imagine it."

Despite this annus mirabilis, Roche's name doesn't seem to be one of those bandied about in Irish literary circles, or trumpeted from the media rooftops. He is sanguine about this as well. Obviously he hopes the play will be a success. He hopes the film will create a new audience for the stories.

"But part of me," he says, "wants to create this secret garden, you know? If you want to find my books, you'll find 'em. And we'll have a little in-crowd."

He speaks approvingly of the singer-songwriter, Ron Sexsmith, who produces well-shaped songs and sings them with deceptive simplicity. "He lives his life, goes from town to town, country to country. He's a troubadour. It's a very beautiful thing to be."

And not a bad description of Roche himself.

•Lay Me Down Softly , by Billy Roche, opens at the Peacock Theatre tonight.Tumbling Down is published by Tassel Publications.Tales From Rainwater Pond is published by Pillar Press. Billy Roche and Conor McPherson will discuss the art of theatre at the Peacock on Nov 25 at 6.15pm