Swift Festival Drama Competition Shortlist

A Press Release: 

Two prominent Trim writers have made it onto the shortlist in the flash drama competition for the Swift Satire Festival in Trim next month.

Their five-minute plays were among the five selected by Padraic McIntyre, Artistic Director of the Livin’ Dred Theatre Company, Co Cavan, who blind-read the entries. The plays will now be staged – by themselves – on the final day of the festival, Sunday 8th July, at a lunchtime event in the Trim Castle Hotel called A Bite Of Satire.

The drama competition is called Five Fives. The festival itself opens on Thursday, July 5th. The shortlist (in no particular order, I hope) is:

A Swift Response, by the Bradford Literature Group
Inspector Gulliver Calls, by Vera Cait Walsh, Wicklow Town.
If Gulliver was on the Titanic, by Mark Burrow, Bradford
Gulliver at the Gate, by Gareth Mahony, Trim
Gulliver’s Travels: A modern 5-minute version, by Michael Farry, Trim

Gareth Mahony and Michael Farry, who have both made their mark in the cultural and entertainment life of the town, will be joined in the competition by a playwright from Wicklow Town and two writers from Bradford, England.

Gareth has been very active in the local musical and drama groups as an actor and director. He revived the Christmas pantomime in Trim – as writer, director and cast member – and, on a wider scale, formed Stagecraft Stageschool and Meath Youth Musical Society. Recently he distinguished himself as one of the cast of three in Trim Drama Group’s production of Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, the Frank McGuinness play about hostages in the Middle East, directed by Elaine McLoughlin.

Michael Farry is a poet and historian.

Pat Dunne, chairman of the Cultural Subcommittee of the Swift festival, said the presence of plays by writers from Bradford is explained by the fact that two people from there, both teachers, came to last year’s Swift festival in Trim. “They liked it so much that they are returning this year with a small group of their students,” he said. “The group entered three plays in the competition; two of them made the shortlist.”

He said the organisers were particularly looking forward to seeing how well it would work out that the playwrights themselves must arrange to stage the plays, with their own cast and props. “The stage facilities and lighting are the only elements we are providing,” he said.

The plays will be staged as part of an event, A Bite of Satire: Sunday Lunch + Extras,  which will also include the annual Battle of the Books satirical writing competition between the Meath Writers’ Circle and the Boyne Writers Group.

Tickets for the event cost €20 and include a 2-course Sunday lunch. They can be purchased from the festival website.