Come Here To Me!

This is a jeu d’esprit, a fusion of the real, the fantastic and the legendary, by a writer of amazing technical virtuosity.

So began the 1939 review of Brian O’Nolan’s classic At Swim Two Birds inside The Irish Times, a paper he was all too familiar with one could say. The reviews latter assertion that “it is quite impossible to give an accurate idea of the contents of the work” is something that will resonate with many!

In it’s first six months, a mere 244 copies of the work were sold. The warehouse of Longman’s, the works publisher, were destroyed by a German bombing during the second World War and that, for a period, marked the death of At Swim Two Birds.

My favourite of the authors works, Blue Raincoat are staging a production of At Swim Two Birds in the Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar.An excellent review of the companies production can be found at the site of the Irish Theatre Magazine, written by Patrick Lonergan of NUI Galway.

At Swim Two Birds is a genuine celebration of the theatrical: it sent me back to the original novel – but it also left me waiting impatiently for an opportunity to go and see the play again.

The play will run from February 22 to March 5, and tickets are available from the Project Arts Centre online.

A pint in The Palace and a trip to the theatre is in order.