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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Last Word on Today FM.
Hello and welcome to the Culture Club. We're joined today by Annie Ryan, who is the director of The White-Headed Boy, which is currently running at the Abbey Theatre to rave reviews. The run ends on the 25th of July, but there are chances still to get tickets from abbeytheatre.ie. Annie, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
Just tell us a little bit about The White-Headed Boy, because... It's a phrase I'd be familiar with, and I think it's that because it is a very, very famous, very old Irish play. Yes, it was written by Lennox Robinson in 1916 amidst great, you know, revolution and uprising and war.
And I guess he had the wisdom to know that a good time in situations like that, which were not too far away from now, is to give the people something to laugh at. So The White-Headed Boy is basically a sitcom nearly of a family of six kids. The father's died and the mother is besotted with the youngest, her Dennis, who is the white-headed boy.
And all of the resources of the family have gone to kind of You know, make sure that he becomes a doctor in Dublin and then all this kind of thing. But he's never been asked if he wants to be a doctor in Dublin. So really, in a way, the whole theme is really about freedom and doing what you want and the younger ones rebelling against the older ones.
But my goal with the whole piece was, can we make something just really funny and really short? And we have. I'm so thrilled to say, like, it's really, really fun. It's the performances are just getting better and better and better. And the cast are amazing. And it's really good crack. But you've updated it, haven't you? You're not setting it 110 years ago. Where have you set it?
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Chapter 2: What is the main theme of The White-Headed Boy?
Yes, exactly. Because I wanted to resonate to people now. So I chose to put it in kind of 1979, 1980, when things were still pretty bad for women. So the play involves the sisters in the play, you know, they can only get married. That's their only way really out of the house.
And so their hopes are thwarted and I thought well the 80s isn't too far away from that you know there was great impoverishment the pressure from the church so of course it's an imperfect rhyme not everything is exactly right and we've cut some things that really are you know really not a good rhyme.
But but what's really fun about it, audiences are saying that the set in particular and the costumes really reminds them of either their youth or their like grandparents house. So but everything's recognizable, like the tiles in the kitchen, the staircase, all the little weird objects, the jelly mold, the coleslaw. I don't know. The one leaf of salad with a half tomato, you know.
It's really fun. And what we found was that we have very, very funny people trying to kind of... Well, we thought we had to like create more gags and make it more contemporary in a way to kind of really resonate. But it turns out that the play itself is really, really funny. And the big gasps from the audience come from the actual old play.
So it's all about like, they're all pulling the rug from under each other and... Because things have changed and that we now have a major representation of women in third level education, which would have been starting, I suppose, the 1980s in particular, and is now completely natural and normal. But yet this thing about families, one child getting better preferential treatment,
to others is still very real. This idea as well of people perhaps being forced into third level education by the expectations of others, even if it doesn't suit them, isn't gone away either. And I mean, so much of like one of the big things for the family are the social standing in the town. So how people will regard us.
And I mean, I remember mothers in the schoolyard talking about, well, Jimmy must get the piece of paper. Otherwise, if you don't get the piece of paper, what is going to happen to you? I Oh, man, here we are. You know, so those those social pressures are still very much with us. I mean, all you have to do is walk down the road to watch everyone in their SUVs or whatever.
Like, do you really need an SUV to drive around in little Dublin? Like, what's going on? So it's that is a really wonderful, very funny theme throughout it as well. And yeah. And just for the girls, I suppose, back in even 1980, it was still fee paying.
You know, if you were from the countryside, if you didn't have a place to stay in Dublin, if your family didn't have the money, then you really couldn't go off and do whatever you wanted, even if you had the points. Where was your schoolyard? Well, my school, I'm a yank, you see. I was brought up in the suburbs of Chicago. You've lost the accent. I haven't really.
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Chapter 3: How has Annie Ryan updated the setting of the play?
Matthew Broderick is coming to the Abbey in August, I think. Is that right? Yeah, August. So, I mean, I've never met him. I sat in his chair on the day. You starred in the movie with him, but your first time meeting will be over 40 years later in the Abbey. I'm way down. I'm one of the Shermerites, we're called, the high school. So he would not know me. But anyway, sure, look.
Yeah.
OK, let's get to all your Culture Club choices, because I'm fascinated by the fact as well, growing up in Chicago, that you have for your first piece of music you remember buying for a single, it was Sweden's finest ABBA. So were they as big with the kids in the United States as they were in this part of the world?
I mean, we used to do these like little dance-offs, little shows for our parents, the neighbor's kids, Marjo Call and Chrissy Peterson, kind of shows you I didn't grow up here, but these tall Swedes actually.
And we would just do these dance routines to ABBA, which featured basically just walking up and down a room, walking toward the parents and then away from the parents, toward the parents and then away from the parents and then a little shimmy. And we thought we were brilliant. And they used to just sit and laugh and laugh. And then we'd get really cross if they weren't laughing.
Let's hear a little bit of Dancing Queen by ABBA.
Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene Diggin' Dancing Queen Friday night and the lights are low Lookin' out for a place to go Anybody could be that guy. Night is young and the music's high.
Do you still like ABBA? Do I still like ABBA? I mean, you know, I remember it as a sort of early love, but, you know, it wouldn't be my favourite. I was sitting here thinking, is this the most strategic choice to play? No, the reason I asked one of my colleagues is not with us this week because at the ABBA Experience in London. Oh, there you go. Maybe I subconsciously chose it for them.
Your favourite album is a great choice. Very 1980s of that era. Talking Heads Stop Making Sense. Why have you picked this? Well, when it came out as a film, I guess I was probably 16 or something like that. I can't remember if it was before or after shooting Ferris Bueller. But anyway, it was sometime around then. And I think I saw it in the cinema like seven times. I just absolutely loved it.
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Chapter 4: What humorous elements are present in The White-Headed Boy?
But I could see it was really a joy to watch Ollie's discovery of Bowie. But what about your own discovery? Well, my own discovery was with my friend Polly Noonan, who's hilariously also in Ferris Bueller. At the end, she's the girl with the gummy bears. Anyway, she's arriving in Dublin like next week. But she introduced me to David Bowie on her rooftop.
They had this amazing rooftop kind of sun deck. And yeah, blew my head off. Let's hear a little bit of Bowie from the album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Suffragette City.
My school is insane. We'll be right back.
Great stuff from David Bowie. Now, you've given us two gigs and the first one is in the 80s. The other one is far more recently. So go to the one from November 1987 in New York, The Pogues. Yeah, the Pogues. I went to see the Pogues while I was at college at NYU. And I can't remember if I went alone or if I went with anyone. I might have just gone by myself.
But it was just such a magic atmosphere. And I think it was the first time I really, really witnessed like a proper mosh pit. And that's how it's related to my second choice. Will I talk about that?
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Chapter 5: How does the play reflect social issues of its time?
No, just tell me a bit more about the Pogues. I was going to play a little bit of the Pogues. Oh, yeah. Brilliant. I was just also a really big fan in the 80s. Were you aware of an Irish culture growing up? Is that why the Pogues appealed to you? I presume it had something to do with it. My grandparents were Irish and maybe I've associated with it at some level.
But I just loved the kind of rawness of it at that time. And in a way, like, well, not the track you played, but
other songs by Talking Heads or you know even like Madness or The Clash I mean I was from the most like boring suburb like republican suburb we were like the only democrats in the village kind of thing but um but we were all listening to all the British stuff and uh uh so yeah it just really appealed and then um it was I was like an observer at the concert it felt like more than really in the concert but it was um yeah fascinating to see and it's
Well, we have a little bit of the pokes, not from that gig, but this was the following year in London at the Town and Country Club, 1988, singing Fiesta.
Fiesta I just want to say I want it all at once No!
That's mosh pit music, all right, isn't it? So tell us about your other choice, Pants on Fire. Yeah, Pants on Fire is a band that my son Ollie and his mates formed in school. And I suppose, you know, with a name like Pants on Fire, it sort of gives away the age of the band members. They're not really together anymore, but they played their first gig in Soundhouse on the Keys there. And
I just included it because, like, I was the mom at the side, like, watching. And the kids, like, were like, we have to, like, we've got to, we've got to, we've got to jump around. And it was like they were inventing the mosh pit right in front of my eyes. It was so funny and so great.
So I just thought there was a nice little connection between the pogues and this kind of energy of the boys needing ā The boys and the girls, but like it was definitely like a boy band vibe and just their need to kind of thrash each other. So let's move away from the music and let's talk about movies and television and books and things. We asked you for a favourite movie or director or actor.
You've given us Bette Davis in All About Eve. Tell us about this, please. This was my mother's favorite movie, and she really foisted it onto me and has become one of my favorite performances ever. It's maybe the best movie about the theater, although Birdman is really up there as a contender as well. But it's one of these great iconic films about the theater and an actress, an aging actress.
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