The Fanzini Brothers
Kerry's favourite Italians Ronaldo & Guido
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Diversions Temple Bar.
We were well happy to be asked to perform at this event as it gives us the opportunity to bring our show to a wider audience in the captial city in the cultural quarter of temple bar.
We also had Mrs Ronaldo along for the trip up to Dublin as she was heading overseas. We decided that it would be best to head up to Dublin on the night before the performance so as to be happy and well rested for the morning before the performance. . A good idea so we parked up the Transporter in a multi storey as we arrived late and our options were limited so we parked up and checked in to the central hotel. Now normally i am a good natured Fanzini but this hotel despite being located in the center of Dublin was possibly one of the shoddiest hotels i have ever been in. Now in fairness they were making an effort to improve, in fact my room had been recently painted i knew this because of the wet paint (i am not kidding) on the door. The paint smell gave it away as did the fact that my door was painted shut and i damm near had to shoulder it open (bad idea with the wet paint). I was lucky though cos when we spilt the keys at reception Ronaldo got the key for room 208 and little did he know. You see all throughout the rooms there was a loud humming noise that went on 24/7 seemingly . Ronaldos room was right over the source of the buzzing and no kidding you could stand in one part of the room and it shool like an earth tremor only constantly . I guess it was some kind of fridge unit or air con unit. Sleeping in that room must have been like trying to sleep on the bonnet of a running car. We spoke to another performer who spent a night in the same room, same story.
Luckily for Ronaldo he only had to deal with the shaking as the noise was drowned for him and for everyone else by the loud clamour of a nearby club which blared out for until about 2 when it was back to the comforting hum of Ronaldos vibrating room. Breakfast gave me the shivers; now it consisted of dubious drowning in water scrambled egg the lowest common denominator in breakfast terms as it can be prepared with no real effort and can be preserved for hours and worse still the excuse that they had for hash browns was a lumpy mess with no real shape and all on the same tray as sausages that had become mashed in there too great for vegetarians. We bailed out on that option and had a lovely freshly prepared breakfast in Munchies just down the street good strong coffee too. Now we did not complain cos we are easy going types and anyway we were being put up by the festival i just shudder to think of people giving over hard earned luchre for this awfulness ( in the words of Mr T "I pity the fools") and believe me it is not cheap to stay in the Central Fleabag.
Anyway on to the shows the organisation was fantastic the event was well concieved the support team production team was super the weather was atrotious.We were well happy to be asked to perform at this event as it gives us the opportunity to bring our show to a wider audience in the captial city in the cultural quarter of temple bar.
We also had Mrs Ronaldo along for the trip up to Dublin as she was heading overseas. We decided that it would be best to head up to Dublin on the night before the performance so as to be happy and well rested for the morning before the performance. . A good idea so we parked up the Transporter in a multi storey as we arrived late and our options were limited so we parked up and checked in to the central hotel. Now normally i am a good natured Fanzini but this hotel despite being located in the center of Dublin was possibly one of the shoddiest hotels i have ever been in. Now in fairness they were making an effort to improve, in fact my room had been recently painted i knew this because of the wet paint (i am not kidding) on the door. The paint smell gave it away as did the fact that my door was painted shut and i damm near had to shoulder it open (bad idea with the wet paint). I was lucky though cos when we spilt the keys at reception Ronaldo got the key for room 208 and little did he know. You see all throughout the rooms there was a loud humming noise that went on 24/7 seemingly . Ronaldos room was right over the source of the buzzing and no kidding you could stand in one part of the room and it shool like an earth tremor only constantly . I guess it was some kind of fridge unit or air con unit. Sleeping in that room must have been like trying to sleep on the bonnet of a running car. We spoke to another performer who spent a night in the same room, same story.
Luckily for Ronaldo he only had to deal with the shaking as the noise was drowned for him and for everyone else by the loud clamour of a nearby club which blared out for until about 2 when it was back to the comforting hum of Ronaldos vibrating room. Breakfast gave me the shivers; now it consisted of dubious drowning in water scrambled egg the lowest common denominator in breakfast terms as it can be prepared with no real effort and can be preserved for hours and worse still the excuse that they had for hash browns was a lumpy mess with no real shape and all on the same tray as sausages that had become mashed in there too great for vegetarians. We bailed out on that option and had a lovely freshly prepared breakfast in Munchies just down the street good strong coffee too. Now we did not complain cos we are easy going types and anyway we were being put up by the festival i just shudder to think of people giving over hard earned luchre for this awfulness ( in the words of Mr T "I pity the fools") and believe me it is not cheap to stay in the Central Fleabag.
Our first show in the civic auditorioum was rained off we hung around and hung around and wawited and watched as the rain fell and washed away the first show. We did however get to hang out with our biggest or even our smallest fan. David from mayo is about eight years old and is big into the circus and we first met him at one of our shows in Mayo. We chatted to him for a bit and found out that he was really into what we do and circus in general. His mom really supported him in his love of circus acts and had been ferrying him around the country to see acts and had planned her holidays so that he could come to Dublin for the circus season in Diversions. We looked through the programme with them for a bit and we reccomended a few acts for them to see. David himself was really clued in and knew quite a few of the acts. The future of performance in Ireland......Perhaps.
We were gutted that the show was pulled and were bursting to pull a show as we knew that other acts had also been forced to cancel shows and that is just not on. So we set up the second show for six in Meeting house square and the people did come and the sun shone on a small patch of Dublin long enough for us to do a show. We really enjoyed the show and so it seemed did the The support team was superb and helped in every way possible from carrying stuff to everything you could wish for. They couldnt stop the weather and after doing a very satisfying show it poured a very rainy rain that made us and our stuff very wet very quickly. So we packed up our show and had the lads help us load the van. Then it was back to the hotel for a tepid shower and a very satisfying meal in the fine Moltari resturant near the stephens green center fine venue fine food and a whopper of a dessert.
A caramel parafait with a caramel sauce. A wonderful carmel overdose.
The second day was better. Again we abandoned ship for breakfast time a wise move. We ate in Cornucopia a veggie eatery just up the road. Anyway on to business we got to do two very satisfying shows in the main square in temple bar and the weather held off. We were tight for space in the venue but we comfortably able to hold two large crowds. This was indeed a compliment as with the amount of stuff going on about the place when people stop to see your show then its up to you to deliver.
We also met up with the Armani Acrobats who are my favourite act in the country at the moment
Great programme an interesting diversion shame about the weather.
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