Mike Vickers' Blog

Why do all the best playwrights in the English language come from Ireland?  I can list Richard Sheridan, William Congreve, Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett. To these I could add James Joyce and WB Yeats.  Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule!

Anyway I have been all over Ireland, a country I love but not much in Dublin and one Saturday evening I was in Dublin – I had given an introduction to our practice management system for hearing aid dispenses as a part of a seminar to the Irish Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists and a lovely lady said what was I intending to do that evening and I said I didn’t know, so she said why not go to the Abbey Theatre and I thought that was great idea.  To me the Abbey epitomised the Irish Theatre and my love of Irish plays.  The hotel I was saying at was just round the corner and so I booked up. 

So to my great joy I had an unforgettable evening in the Abbey, in the front row with feet resting on the stage watching the Aristocrats by Brian Friel – one of the greatest modern Irish Dramatist.  The Aristocrats so reminded me of Chekhov but set in Ireland

To follow the evening off, I had a very pleasant day walking all round Dublin passing statues of Mollie Malone and James Joyce.