On the Scratcher

I’m not a big theatre goer but there are certain pieces that really grab my attention. Devious Theatre‘s Scratcher was one such production and I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the sold out Dublin show last Thursday. Scratcher gives a perspective on something that all of us fear - the dole queue. It’s a stark reality for the 400,000 unemployed people in Ireland at the moment. Disaffection is rampant as is frustration and Scratcher deals with characters who decide to take a stand. There’s the arts student who just can’t make a living, the builder who does a few nixers on the side, the lad who can’t wait to get back to bed, the professional whose pride is severely dented by the position she’s found herself in. So what are they to do? Take a stand? Stop getting pissed on and get pissed off? They’ve yet to … There’s more

Pretentious? Moi?

There was great rejoicing in my house recently when, on a few days off from work, I decreed that we would watch lots of movies. Possibly Himself thought that this would be his great opportunity to catch up on the latest big-name blockbusters; I didn’t think to ask. Then again, neither did he. Perhaps he didn’t qualify my definition of “movie” because he already knows what an off-centre thinker I am when it comes to visual entertainment. Either or, our recent popcorn session was spent over Black Swan, Winter’s Bone, and the like, films you need a coffee and a pompous chat after. Oh, and Afterschool. I’d been desperate to watch Afterschool for quite some time. We had a very loud sort of pompous chat after, because Himself took an immediate dislike to it. He found it disjointed, overblown, too stylised, and ultimately unfulfilling. Pretentious, I think was a term … There’s more