Reviews

Irish Times writers review Ronnie Drew in Andrews Lane and John Wallace and the RTE/CO under the baton of Laurent Wagner in The Helix.

An Evening with Ronnie Drew, Andrews Lane, Dublin

There is a lovely sense, in Ronnie Drew's new solo show, of a circle being closed. The folk boom that started to roll in the late 1950s and the theatrical revival of the same era were in some respects intertwined. They gushed from the same wellspring of energy, the same rebellion against the drabness of an increasingly stale official culture.

The Dubliners in particular embodied the relationship. Luke Kelly was married to the founder of the Focus Theatre, Deirdre O'Connell. Ronnie Drew started his career as a performer with the actor John Molloy, and later worked with Niall Tóibín. The group performed, both as actors and as musicians, in Brendan Behan's last, unfinished play, Richard's Cork Leg, in 1972. Tom Murphy wrote The J. Arthur Maginnis Story for them in 1976.

This new show is not, strictly speaking, a piece of theatre, but it does explore the borderlands between folk songs on the one side and theatrical and literary culture on the other.

The world Drew evokes, and from which he himself emerged, is one in which writers and singers shared a common hinterland of story-telling, bohemianism and anti-establishment attitudes. In conjuring it up, he reminds us of the richness of that landscape and the way the shared terrain of music, narrative and performance has been explored by Irish playwrights from Sean O'Casey to Behan and from John B. Keane to Murphy.

The evening is loose, relaxed and intimate. Accompanied only by the often exquisite guitar work of Mike Hanrahan and against a changing backdrop of monochrome photographs from the National Photographic Archive, Drew talks, recites, reads and, of course, sings.

The spiel is an engaging mix of personal anecdotes from his own drinking days, poems by Paul Durcan, Brendan Kennelly and James Joyce, and reminiscences of the likes of Behan and Patrick Kavanagh. The songs are chosen with the innate good taste that has made Drew such an immensely influential figure in Irish culture, ranging from the music-hall simplicity of Finnegan's Wake to the surreal wordplay of the Ballad of Humpty Dumpty from Joyce's novel of (almost) the same name.

The latter is one nugget in a seam of literary songs that includes Behan's The Captains and the Kings and Shane McGowan's The Dunes that highlight Drew's unique mixture of the rough-and-tumble street singer and the sophisticated artist.

It is, above all, his voice, that volcanic rumble from somewhere near the centre of the earth, that holds together what might otherwise have been a scattered series of reflections.

The voice is in great shape: the advantage of sounding ancient when he was still in in his 20s is that he still sounds the same now that he is edging into his 70s.

In the course of a very funny anecdote about one of his encounters with Kavanagh, he remarks of himself that he is not a conventionally fine singer but has "a storytelling kind of a voice". This sums up the reason his show hangs together so well. The transition from speaking to singing is just a shift of register between telling stories with and without tunes.

The voice, sweet as paint-stripper and smooth as sand-paper, also makes nostalgia impossible. Even if he tried to be sentimental - and he doesn't - it would come out sardonic. Anyone else telling yarns about Behan and Kavanagh would almost inevitably be sucked into the swamp of rare-oul'-times Dubbalin melancholy. Drew's tone, whether singing or talking, is so dryly mordant, however, that the anecdotes retain their sting.

He has, besides, the right to tell these stories. He knew these people, and he himself occupies the same semi-legendary space of half-remembered, half-invented stories that the city has created around their memories. He tacitly acknowledges this by weaving stories about himself into the fabric of tales about the dead writers.

For funny, engaging, entertaining and absorbing as it is, An Evening with Ronnie Drew is also a chance to encounter a genuine national treasure. Anyone over 40 will relish the chance to meet one of the genuine heroes of Irish popular culture in such an intimate setting. Anyone under 40 should go along to learn that even without Elvis we had our own rock and roll. - Fintan O'Toole

Wallace, RTÉCO/Wagner Mahony Hall, The Helix

Gounod - Petite Symphonie. Haydn - Trumpet Concerto. Symphony No 31 (Horn Signal). Ravel - Ma mère l'oye.

Following the sharp responses of Laurent Wagner in Mahler with the RTÉ NSO at the beginning of the month, it was a disappointment to encounter so much flaccid music-making in Thursday's programme with his own orchestra, the RTÉCO.

In spite of its title and the fact that it attracts the attention of conductors, Gounod's Petite Symphonie for wind ensemble of 1885 is actually a work of chamber music. On this occasion, however, the appeal of this usually delightful work was limited by a distinct lack of lightness and charm in Wagner's approach.

He managed to set tempos which caused the music to labour rather than sparkle, and there was an undue effort, too, in his handling of Ravel's Mother Goose Suite. Ravel's harmonies often acquire a special glow when given the time and space, but no magical effect of that kind materialised on this occasion.

John Wallace was an undistinguished soloist in Haydn's Trumpet Concerto. His tone lacked the firm nobility one can reasonably expect in this work, and the orchestral accompaniment failed to inject any real vitality into the music.

Haydn's Horn Signal Symphony, which opened the concert's second half, briefly lifted the evening onto a higher plane. The articulation was clearly-defined, the rhythm well sprung, and there were some sensitive and stylish solos, especially from cellist David James and leader Mircea Petcu.

One of the major challenges facing the principal conductor of any orchestra is that of consistency through wide exposure over a broad range of repertoire.

The signals from Wagner's tenure with the RTÉCO have mostly been positive. It is sincerely to be hoped that this latest programme does not bode any significant change of direction. - Michael Dervan