Last night, I made my way to see Tarbert Theatre players production of a 3 act play by the pen of Jim Keary called “Finders Keepers”. After many months of hard work and rehearsal time, the players brought this play to life over 5 nights concluding last night in Tarbert Community Centre.
This play saw the introduction of a few new faces to the Tarbert Theatre players family with John Coolahan, Denis Sheehan, Shona Allen, Alison Lanigan and Ger Flavin all making there stage debuts.
Cormac Wall and Ciara Shine two experienced seasoned actors took on the lead roles of “Bernie Bennett” and Cormac inhabited the character of “Michael Murphy” beautifully showing a deep understanding of a soft gentle yet slightly naive farmer who can easily get distracted and forgetful as he gave his love interest a mortuary card rather than the birthday card he set aside for her.
He has competition for Bernie’s affections with local well to do farmer Sam Cullen also vying for her eye. We are introduced to Bernie’s mad half-sister Shelagh Flaherty who has an extremely loose moral compass and plays the field extremely well first with solicitor Mark Costello and then she moves her gaze and affections smoothly to Sam Cullen who seems enamoured with all the attention.
Solicitor Mark struggles when he realises that his strong willed and fearsome wife Breda (shona allen) has been told of his afternoon ”appoinments” with Shelagh ( aine enright) by her friend Kay Cattroll (alison lanigan) but when she confronts him in Bernie’s front room in a case of mistaken identity by attacking the unsuspecting Bernie who hasn’t a clue of her flirtatious sister Shelagh’s moments of passion with Mark…
Thankfully all is calmed down, and we are next introduced to Paddy Molloy (ger flavin) who speaks with Michael in the mart yard canteen and he says that Michael should thread carefully. Paddy is himself excited by the slightest mention of two women having a set to. Paddy is the type of friend who would drop you in it to get the desired effect and laugh.
Micheal’s sister Sharon (mag o donnell) is very protective if not quite forceful in trying to look out for her naive gentle brother and threatens him with the ultimate Irish threat of “telling mammy” if he doesn’t stop is his quest to end up with Bernie.
Michael manages to stand up to his sister and finally after much back and forth manages to tell Sharon where to go and goes down on bended knee and asks Bernie to marry him and she agrees….
Director Helen Enright got her casting bang on with Ciara Shine and Cormac Wall in the lead roles supported ably by the other new faces like John Coolahan who brought the well to do farmer Sam Cullen to life.
Alison Lanigan and Shona Allen crashed through the door at one point and made such an impact as Kay and Breda, both of these ladies are not to be messed with..
Ger Flavin brought Paddy Molloy to life and did it well. Another debutant Denis Sheehan was born to be on stage as was Aine Enright who brought the half cracked Shelagh Flaherty to life, Shelagh would frighten the most composed of men, fair play to Aine who played the role to a tee….
Lastly Mag O Donnell brought us Sharon O Rourke the domineering sister of Michael Murphy and as I mentioned used the ultimate threat of bringing Mammy into the equation to help her get him away from Bernie and back under the thumb at home one suspects !!!
Well done to Helen Enright and all her team for bringing another production from Tarbert Theatre players to life and giving everybody a laugh as it is so important given what is happening in Ireland at the moment as well as globally…
Let’s hope we see Tarbert Theatre players back before 2025 ends or at the start of 2026….