Secrets of a first night

A healer, a hairdresser and the hirsute Frank McGuinness arrive for the opening of Mutabilitie at the Samuel Beckett Theatre …

A healer, a hairdresser and the hirsute Frank McGuinness arrive for the opening of Mutabilitie at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Trinity College. McGuinness is here to witness the first performance in Ireland of his play, which took 12 years on and off to write". He's happy about the opening but opening-night nerves "are not as bad as that when it's been on before", he says. He also says there's a musical in the pipeline that he might be getting involved in but all will be revealed in due course. Mum's the word.

From Carlingford in Co Louth, Nevan Finegan, the actor currently starring in The Fitz, is off to Rome next, but that's very hush-hush too. All he can say is that he's doing a film with "a big director and it's a very big budget film".

Jane Dowling is the healer, a reiki healer from Blackrock, Co Dublin, who chats before going inside with actor David Collins, who plays a new character in TG4's Ros na Run. Actor Alvaro Lucchesi, from Dundalk, is currently playing "a very gruesome character" in The Count of Monte Cristo, which is being filmed at Ardmore Studios, as we speak.

The actor Maria McDermottroe, aka Venetia in Glenroe, arrives minus her character's wig. Without this blond mop-top, she goes un-noticed, she says. No, she's never mobbed in the street either. As to plot developments in Glenroe, she's unable to divulge any secrets either: "I'm just clinging grimly on to Dick, having just got him."

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And, finally, the hairdresser: sporting a hefty ponytail of dreadlocks, Jimmy Mullen, owner of Whetstone Hairdressing on Parliament Street, is on hand to restyle any "babes and hunks, thinkers, dreamers, artistes . . . ageing punks . . . singers, beauties, beasts and all night swingers". He'll also do "attention seekers with fancy footwear . . . and charm and those who are serene and calm."