PART 3...

Lights went up and its INTERMISSION!  Wow! What a first act!  I was very, very impressed with what I had seen so far, and couldn’t wait for more!  Jimmy and I were very thirsty, and we thought “Wait for hours in a drinks queue… or flash our backstage passes and have a few drinks with the dancers backstage?”  Oooh, let me think! 

We made our way to the backstage area and were about to enter when we spotted that there were several of the female dancers in the corridors getting undressed! Whoops! Better give them a few minutes.  (Curses! Foiled again!)  While we were waiting we spotted Colm and a few other band members outside, messing with their instruments.  After the ladies had finished getting dressed, we made our way into the cafeteria area once again, and after congratulating the dancers on a job well done, we sat down and had a few soft drinks.  (There was a big ice box with cans of coke in, and I took the last one but felt really guilty afterwards… the dancers deserved it more than I did!  I was worn out just watching the thing, and I didn’t even do any hard work!)  Most of the troupe stayed in their costumes for Act 1, and sat around the tables watching TV and relaxing in the 20-minute intermission.   The fiddler, Elzbieta Haluk, came down and I had my photo taken with her!

Elzbieta Haluk Click on the image for a larger version.

Elzbieta Haluk and Me (with my stolen drink!)
Click on the image for a larger version.

Nicole Williams, who usually plays Rhiannon.
Tonight was her "night off"to dance in the troupe.
Click on the image for a larger version

Before we knew it, it was time to find our seats again and prepare ourselves for what Act 2 had in store…

Act 2 opens with 2 instrumental pieces, Around the House and Keep it Reel.  Great hand clappin’ foot stomping Irish music!  The troupe also came on in a softshoe Siamsa-style thing, but without the bright costumes!  This was meant to be a celebration of some kind, which I didn’t understand, since the two families had been torn apart…etc…etc… but I suppose it killed a bit of time before the next part of the story, Hopeless Love.

This is a bit like a reprise of the earlier love duet, with the same music (but with a nice human voice effect in the background… sorta like the Titanic music.)  Timmy & Clare do a short little duet, before Timmy leaves her alone.  (Fool!  Big mistake… big, big mistake…!)  No sooner is he out the way, than Clare finds her exits blocked by some girls in sinister white masks… she turns and sees that Christine and her creepy followers have trapped her.

©MH

This dance is called Wrath Descends and is very similar to LOTD’s Nightmare in concept and choreography.  The music is creepy and atmospheric… sounds like something from an old Hammer Horror film… Clare runs from one side to the other, and tries pleading with the girls to let her go, but they either stare at her or ignore her. 

After a while, Timmy comes running in and holds her, but Christine’s followers drag him away. Christine comes walking towards him, stands in front of him gloating for a while, before pulling out the red cloth (off Clare’s dress.  Remember?)  and slapping him across the face with it.  He is then dragged away as Christine sets about her terrible revenge… her followers gang around poor Clare and start attacking her.  The lights start flashing wildly, blinding us to what’s going on.  Clare is forced upwards and reaches out to try and escape, before being dragged down.

Presumably the girls are beating her up, and after a while the girls pull back as Clare staggers about… then Christine comes up behind her, and as the scene goes into a sort of in slow motion effect, she delivers the final “death blow” with the red scarf.

Aisling pays the ultimate price for her unfaithfullness.
Click on the image for a larger version.
©GF

Clare slowly drops dead, and Nicole and the girls dance a victory dance around her body while Christine climbs some stairs at the back of the stage and watches.  Soon, Timmy comes running back in and finds Clare’s body.  He runs to the girls (who have unmasked themselves at this point) and through his body language demands to know who is responsible.

The girls calmly point up the stairs to Christine.   Timmy runs up the stairs and drags her down, throwing her at the feet of Clare’s body.  The other girls wisely leave them alone, and Tara comes onstage to sing a lament, Hopeless Dreams.  This is a new song (also not on the CD) and I really love it!  This is the best song in the show, in my opinion.  Very sad and well sung.  Click on the for an extract (not very good quality - taken from the webcast.)

While Tara sings, Caun finds Clare and holds her in his arms for a while, before lifting her and taking her away (Clare “plays dead” very well… she is extremely limp and totally believable.)  Meanwhile Christine shows signs of remorse for what she has done, by breaking down in tears on the stairway.

The next scene is Goltrai (As tears fall) and is very effective, because it is Aisling’s funeral.  The set is identical to the opening… the same church where Cuan and Aisling were married, is used for her funeral.  It begins with Anton standing alone in the church with slow, sad music playing.  Then a group of mourners come in, carrying the body of Aisling.  The music changes to Cuan’s theme tune again, which I didn’t think suited the funeral procession at all… I’m sure Colm could come up with some better music for this scene.  Some parts are too fast and…er…dance-y for this scene.

Aislings Funeral
©GF

Anyway, as the funeral procession leaves, we see Timmy walk onstage to watch.  Obviously he isn’t invited to the funeral, and when Anton sees him he isn’t too pleased and turns him away.  Timmy leaves without causing any more trouble.  The next scene is Time Heals. 

"OK, now we're friends again, lets have a thumb wrestling match!" ©GF

Ooh look!  Clare is alive!  Isn’t theatre wonderful!  Clare returns as Aisling’s spirit to reunite the brothers, clothed in a white dress and in ballet shoes.  Then we see Timmy and Anton coming together to face each other, before joining and hands and making up.  I don’t understand this – what made them make up so quickly?  The whole storyline to Act 2 seems a bit sparse and rushed compared to Act 1’s careful storyline and characterisation, and you feel the show is over very quickly.  But luckily, there is a consolation… there is a very large set of encore dances ahead!

It’s time for Harmonia Mundi – The Finale.  This is your average finale encore routine thing, where the characters’ theme tunes are played and the leads come on to do little solos and take their bows.  First up is Clare, doing a great softshoe solo and getting generous audience applause.  Next up is the turn of Anton and the guys in a reprise of Men of the Fields. It’s not until this time that the audience actually start clapping along with the music!  But from this point onwards the crowd got louder and louder!  Then the music gets itself all worked up and we know that it’s Timmy’s turn!  He makes his appearance on the top of the stairway at the back of the stage, before LEAPING off the top and landing perfectly in the centre of the stage (and it’s a hefty drop as well!)

He starts running around and leaping, and at first I thought his mic were broken because I heard no taps!  Took me a while to realise that he was in softshoe (or similar) which was quite original as he doesn’t do much of this, especially not a solo.  However, because he is in softshoe he gets his opportunity to dazzle us with his acrobatic style of Irish dance… as mentioned earlier, he used to be in a circus, and in this solo we see him doing somersaults and back flips and all sorts of highly energetic, acrobatic moves!  His style of dance in this reminds me a lot of Russ Tamblyn.  After Timmy, Christine appears at the top of the stairs for her solo.  This has no music, only a continuous beat of a drum, which gets faster and faster as her own moves increase speed.  It’s curious that the role of Rhiannon seems to get more of the high speed tapping solos, which are normally reserved for the lead male dancer.  But she is certainly a fast girl, very impressive to watch! 

When she has finished, everyone in the troupe comes onstage as the Gaelforce theme tune plays.  One thing that struck me as amusing, was that I was thinking to myself “I’ve been watching this for two hours or so, and not once have I seen them use Michael Flatley’s domino move from RD/LOTD!” No sooner had that thought left my head, than they did a domino move, up and down and back again!  Although, to give them credit, it was not just a copy of the ones we have seen.   I think the troupe spun around in this one, but the effect was the same!

The Finale!
©JS

The final dance finished and the crowd started applauding noisily, one or two whistling and screaming.  Only a few (myself included, of course) stood up to give them a standing O!  But from the noise coming from the audience, I can safely say the audience enjoyed the show very much!

 After taking in the audience applause the dancers walked offstage, waving to the crowds as they went.  The lights went off.  What??? The show is over already?  No way!  And look, some people are leaving the theatre already (there’s ALLWAYS one… or two… or twenty…) but soon enough the music starts playing again and as the lights come on we see Timmy somersault and back flip his way across the stage like Darth Maul on a bad day!  Incredible to watch!  To finish the show off in true flourish is the requisite a capella troupe number!  This is very similar to Planet Ireland but not quite as exciting.  Still, it’s fun enough to watch and has some funky drum accompaniment in places, which builds up in speed until they do another reprisal of the GF theme tune.  By this time pretty much everyone in the audience is clapping along!  One more time?  You betcha! GF do 2 encores a night, every night!  So Timmy leads the troupe in a brief reprise of the acapella encore piece.  It didn’t quite get a standing ovation (nothing new, I have seen many Irish dance shows in Birmingham and its very rare there is a total standing O) but there were one a few who stood up and clapped.  The rest of the audience was very vocal and appreciative of the show.  After taking in their applause for the last time, the troupe walk off stage and the lights go out.  Wot, no pyros?

The house lights come back on and everyone leaves.  Wow!  What a show!  There is also an announcement that the troupe will be signing autographs after the show.  When it comes to audience care Gaelforce really know how to do it!  There’s no waiting outside in the freezing cold for six hours, overcrowded, unorganised autograph scrums here.  There is a little desk where the dancers sit and sign the programmes of the (large) crowd of autograph hunters.  Also, the programme is inexpensive, nicely produced and full of up-to-date info and bio’s of the lead dancers, and photos of pretty much every dancer (I would have been lost without the programme… I would have had no idea of the names of half of these people.)

So, my general opinions of the show?  It was GREAT!  Go and see it NOW!!! If it comes anywhere near you don’t hesitate to go!  And even if it’s not, find a way to go! 

 GF incorporates many of the winning ideas of RD/LOTD,  (thundering troupe numbers, charismatic lead males and graceful females) and then adds some of its own original and innovative ideas, as well as weaving a very entertaining storyline out of it.  A note on the story – GF have to be congratulated on this point – the storyline is very well incorporated, never distracting, for the most part easily understandable and never gets in the way of the dancing. 

 One thing I loved about the storyline was that, unlike LOTD, the character roles are not all that cut and dried.  In LOTD you KNOW who is good and bad, but in GF you have to decide for yourself.  On first viewing, you might think that Lorcan, with his free and happy go lucky spirit is the good guy, while Cuan is the bad guy, with his harsh menacing steps, a dull farmer who cares more for his sheep than he does for Aisling, the show heroine.  But who REALLY is good and evil?  After all, isn’t Cuan the victim?  He was the good guy, a law abiding, well-respected farm owner who had his life all sorted out and was happily married to the girl of his dreams… then suddenly his dopey brother comes back from foreign lands, steals his wife and wrecks his life forever!  So maybe Timmy & Clare are the real baddies… but its all down to the individuals mind to figure it out… I like the way the story is constructed like that.  Requires a bit of thought.

 However, as already mentioned, the storyline doesn’t quite stretch to 2 acts in its current form (the storyline 2^nd act seems very rushed, and half of that was 2 unnecessary instrumental pieces, IMHO.)

My only other tiny gripe with the show was that the pacing of the dances was a bit rushed.  What I mean is, that no sooner was one dance over, than the next had begun.  Meaning that there was little or no time for the dancers to take in the audience applause, and also felt to the audience that the show was over before it had begun.  Those 30 seconds or so at the end of each number soon add up, believe me!

 Now comes the crunch question … I am a huge fan of LOTD, for me it is the high watermark in Irish dance shows…so does it compare to LOTD?  Well, yes and no.  I have no problems with putting it on the same level as LOTD.  But I can’t say that it is better or worse, because the shows are so different.  Ultimately, for me LOTD wins out because it is built to give the audience maximum excitement from the dance and there’s nothing that can quite equal that show’s music, choreography or overall feeling.  But GF is not trying to copy LOTD or rival it; it offers a different experience, and a very enjoyable and engrossing one at that.  The storyline and characterisation is better than LOTD, in my opinion.  If GF came back to the UK I would see it again and again without hesitation.  And I thoroughly recommend you see it yourself.  This show will be one to watch in the future.  It may not be well known now, but when the video is released and you all see these talented dancers and this amazing show for yourself, then you will understand what I mean.  GF kicks booty.  You heard it here first, on the Celtic Café!

The hard working guys behind the scenes, packing up the stage, set and lighting/sound equiptment ready for Blackpool's show the next day.

Anyway, after the show Jimmy & I made our way backstage to congratulate the dancers on a job well done.  There weren’t that many around when we got there, but we caught up with Timmy and Clare briefly before they went off to do autographs.  Unfortunately Timmy disappeared after that, so I never got to tell him how I enjoyed the show.  (Timmy, if you’re reading this – you da man!)  However, after a while Clare and Anton returned and agreed to do an interview with me!

I have to stress how grateful I am to Clare, Anton, Frank and Colm for staying up after the show to answer my neverending list of questions… especially Clare, I only meant to interview the poor girl for 10 minutes and ended up going on for over 30!

If you would like to read the interviews, there are links at the bottom of the page.

 So, after those interviews, we headed off with Frank, with several rolls of film, 50 minutes of audio interviews, Gaelforce CDs and a lot of great memories.  So, before I leave you to read the interviews, I would like to thank several people whose co-operation made this all possible.  (This could turn out longer than the average Oscars acceptance speech if I include everyone… )

 First of all, a big thank you goes to Frank Elwin, for looking after us, taking us everywhere, introducing us to everyone and taking time out from your busy schedule to help us out.  Thank you to Jimmy Schaeffer for helping with the audio interviews, and for taking some great pics!  Very big thanks to every dancer who took the time to speak to use or be interviewed, to Tara Ryan for her time, to Richard Griffin for his tremendous patience in teaching an eejit those steps! Thanks in particular to Clare Casey for her patience and kindness to go through that epic interview after such a strenuous performance, and thanks to Anton Cronin and Colm O Foghlu for taking time out for my questions as well.  Thanks to Timmy Manners and the entire Gaelforce troupe for a particularly enjoyable and memorable show.  I can’t wait to see you guys again, on video or live next year!

THANK YOU!  That’s it now, I have no more to say, except to say to everyone out there on the Web, GO AND SEE GAELFORCE DANCE!  You won’t regret it. 

 James Stevens

10^th April 2000

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Interviews with:

Clare Casey
Anton Cronin
Colm O Foghlu
Cathy Maloney

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Go back to Part 2 of the report

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