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Topic: Damien Molony performing with WordTheatre 30 September 2013 The Arts Club, London

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RE: Damien Molony to perform with WordTheatre 30 September 2013 The Arts Club, London
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Where does it say no phones? Is it on the ticket?

I can understand requesting no phones or cameras during the performances as it's theatre (even if it's in a smaller venue) but seems a weird request otherwise...why have 'mingling' as a specific part of the evening otherwise?

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I know Lionel Shriver - she wrote 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'. Haven't read it myself, but my husband has. Have heard of Toby Litt as well, so should be interesting.

I would expect that as they are merely hiring the area that the normal rules wouldn't apply, but who knows? Will be taking my phone and camera anyway, even if they end up not being used (or we'll have to persuade him to stand outside so we can have pics, lol!)

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Molonian
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domino, you're not going to tie them to the radiator, are you?

Anyhoodles! Good thinking, Kat. It's always good to be prepared. They may hang the normal rules for this occasion.

Either way, I will be eagerly awaiting your reports after the event. I'll be in work, of course, but I can sneak into a corner during my break to catch up.

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*turns green with jealousy*
I so want to see Damien perform live!!! Come to the west of England man!!! :D xxx

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In exactly one week I will be about to leave to catch my train to London...... eeek!



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6 days to go! So exciting!

I do hope you have a picture opportunity Kat, this is your first time seeing Damien live isn't it?

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I'm so excited!!! I've got my nails done, bought new outfits and booked trains! I'm all prepared! Bring on the damo!!!!! (Apologies for all the exclamation marks)

*clears throat* SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

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Awwww! YAY. I am so excited for all of you.

Su, don't apologize for exclamations! You have every right to use excessive amounts. !!!!!!!

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Damiac
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I just want to wish you lucky ladies, a fabulous evening on Monday.

Yet again i curse the fact i live so far away, with so many responsibilities...and that it's on a MONDAY!!! why couldn't it have been on the Saturday???? *whinge*

A terrific line up reading short stories. I love to read to my daughter, it's something we still do and she's twelve now and we both enjoy it. To hear Damien (as well as the other participants) read out loud would be utter bliss for me. So everyone, enjoy it :)

And yes, we want vivid, detailed accounts of the evening, it is the law!!!

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Only 2 sleeps left until D-day!


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I'm a little ashamed to say I hadn't noticed the names of the featured authors, must have been distracted by something else...
I have read Lionel Shriver's 'We need to talk about Kevin' & thought it was very good. One more reason to look forward to Monday night!

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Understandable Becca Apparently the authors will be available for signings at the beginning, so maybe take your book with you?

Getting very excited for you all..... TOMORROW!!! theatrecurtains

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To all who are going to see Damien tonight, have a fabulous evening!

I may be wrong, but I think there are still tickets available!

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Have a brilliant time, everyone!!! I am sure you will, no doubt. I cannot wait to hear back from you all. coolbounce



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Damien will be performing right about now!

I wonder....
Which short story is he reading? and in which accent? Who remembers his 'First Person Shooter' reading from last summer and that amazeballs accent!

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First person shooter is a hoot! I loved his accent, it was adorable and made the reading so much fun.



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So..... How was it?

Laura, Su, Kat, fifi, Lisa, Becca , brookesey, Lou, shoe, Vicki.. (Any other forum members I have missed ?) I hope you all had a marvelous evening and enjoyed Damien's and the other actors readings, look forward to hearing all about it

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Had an absolutely wonderful evening..... The venue was great, the stories were moving, spellbinding and funny, and the performances were fantastic.  Of course Damien was briliant!!  He read first - 'People Carry Roses' by Toby Litt, which was funny, with a bit of poignancy.   Sadly no opportunity for anyone to have chat with him (not that I was anticipating to anyway!) but it was just amazing to see him perform live.

I will try to be a bit more expansive about the evening when I'm feeling a bit less sleep depived and my brain is less addled!



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Here's the only 2 photos I took last night. It just wasn't that type of place to take photos. And afterwards we were so busy talking about "the incident" that we didn't take our usual group photo. I did take a couple in the pub, but forgot I'd taken the flash off my camera, so they were too dark to use.

xP1090385 copy.jpg

 

xP1090388 copy.jpg



The first photo is of Lisa - Scifygeek & me in the club. I've been chatting to her for ages on line and so I wanted a photo of her but luckily, Damien was behind her with Toby Litt, rehearsing, so I was able to take a few pics over her shoulder too. Sadly, as you can see, he spent most of the time playing with his hair! so no good photo of his face. His hair is getting long again and kept on falling over his face. He had a beard too - just like the photos you saw of him last week at the Commitments recordings. He was wearing the navy blue cardigan that he kept wearing during stage door photos for Travelling Light, the navy blue Polo shirt that he wore for the Emporio Armani Summer Garden Live show, the navy blue trousers he wore or the Spencer Hart fashion show and the navy shiny sneakers he wore when we met him at the stage door for IYDLUD. He does love his Navy, doesn’t he?

Here's the programme.

Word Theatre Programme copy.jpg



Damien read People Carry Roses by Toby Litt. The story is set in 1985, about a 15 year old boy whose LP collection is vandalised at his sister's party. He then searches the village to track down his one surviving record, which is by Bob Dylan. The title seemed strange & no relation to the story, but I looked on Google and this short story was originally written in 2011 to mark the occasion of Bob Dylan's 70th birthday. The title is a lyric from the Bob Dylan song "Love MinusZero, No Limit" from the Bringing It All Back Home album.


Damien read it in his own Irish accent and the story was very funny. My best bits was when he read the female characters, going all "Sybill Shepherd" for the mother of one of his friends who fancied him. His whole posture changed. It was memorizing to watch him. He seemed nervous, but I don't know why. He had a captivated audience!


As Kat has just said, I seem to be the only one who had a conversation with him. At 6.20, I went into the reception to find out if Kat & I could come in early and the other 4 could come in later. She could not see my name on the list, so I went round the desk and looked at the list and found it. As I looked up, Damien was 2 people behind me! We smiled and nodded at each other. As I was walking out I said hello and had a brief chat. Just chit chat. How we were doing, looking forward to the evening etc. He was holding his script, rolled up. He then said he had to go downstairs and rehearse and he would "catch up with me later" (hence why I assumed that he would come and talk with us at some point in the evening). As I turned to go out, I saw him speak to the lady on reception. With hindsight, I wonder if he was telling her about not letting the crazy "fan" in the red coat in.
I saw him a few times inside. When I was standing at the bar and he was sitting in the curtained off area for the readers, he gave me a little wave and everytime he brushed past me to go to the loo/go to the stage area, he smiled, nodded, and said Hi, How's it going? etc. I only saw him drinking water during the evening. If he had mingled I had planned on buying him a drink - but at those prices, maybe not!


As Kat said, the end of the evening was weird. We were waiting at the bar. During the evening he took his cardigan off, but I saw him put it on and pick up his script (rolled up again), he walked to the side of the bar behind Becca and I looked at her and said "Look, he's coming", then he put his head down, as if to avoid eye contact and sprinted up the stairs. I still can't understand why he just didn't say a simple, "Bye, I have to go". Like Kat, I don't know the full details. Brookesey or Su will tell us. All I know is that I texted them to come asap as Damien was there and Kat & I wondered why they were late. When they arrived, they said that reception had been told by Damien not to let a girl in with a red coat, and Brookesey was wearing one! They moved them to the side and Su said that they were with me, giving my full name. They didn't come to find me, so I assume Su & Shoe were able to convince them that Brookesey was not the "banned" girl. It did put a bit of a dampener on the evening.

 I liked the way we all blamed ourselves when we were talking about it in the pub! - as well as that girl of course!  Should we have been so open about the event on Twitter? Were all our photos of us with our arms around Damien giving people the wrong impression about him. i.e. he's like this with all his fans - not realising that we got those photos after waiting for ages outside freezing stage doors or cold locations in Cardiff! Was he put off by such a big group going to see him? Next time he does theatre shall we spilt up in smaller groups and not all go on the same day? I think the next stage door meet-ups will be very telling.

Anyway, back to last night. I did enjoy it. I was captivated by the performances and would love to go to another one and it was great meeting everyone too.

 



-- Edited by Londonlaura on Wednesday 2nd of October 2013 09:38:39 AM

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wonderful to read your very detailed accounts Kat and Laura, I m so pleased you met each other!

Love the part about Damien blowing out his cheeks - it has always felt to me he is the consummate professional and we know he has oodles of talent but there must be a particular kind of nervousness that goes with giving a reading like that! phew!
I have been curious about which accent Damien used so that is good to know, and about the different voices he used.
Kat, if the recording is to be made publicly available by wordtheatre it will be on their site or youtube page. It may be that they record all their events though and due to various factors/right agreements they never see light of day (or at least the public don't see them). Fingers crossed though that perhaps Damien's performance is released it would be so incredibly wonderful to see it!

Thank you for posting the photos and the programme Laura! Good to see you in the venue and Damien situ!

I have been hearing about the incident with the fan and am deeply saddened by it, but it doesn't sound like we really know what happened and don't really want to give it more attention than it deserves and risk over shadowing Damien's performance. I truly hope Damien is ok and cannot tell you how upsetting it is to think of a fan being anything less than respectful and how damaging that is to an actor's confidence, and confidence in fans, and to the fandom and any fandom and their chances of interaction with their hero. But, there could be many reasons Damien had to leave, perhaps he was conscious that it was a small venue and wordtheatre had their own photographers and was conscious they wanted to keep that exclusive. We did all realised that this event was not going to be like big stage door situation so expectations were different. From the outside looking in, it was amazing to see Damien at all and he did say hello, that would have totally made my night if i were there! I understand though that people may be disappointed not to have met Damien especially those who have not met him before.

Ben Miller's performance is something I would have also liked to see, reading good things about that too!

thanks again for sharing fifi, Kat and Laura!



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I want to thank you guys for sharing all of your experiences! Damien's performance sounds like it was definitely something to be seen and heard...what a talent! I would've loved to have been there. and I would have loved seeing his female impersonations, hehe. That had to be a riot.

Like domino, I am also very saddened and upset hearing about that incident with the girl...some people - for what reason I don't know and can never understand - tend to forget that first and foremost actors are human beings. To hear him treated in such a way kind of breaks my heart for him AND for us who actually respect him not only as a talented thespian/entertainer, but also as a person.

ANYWAY. What a great night. Getting to see Damien, getting to hang out with one another. It's was an epic girls night!



-- Edited by hermyownee on Tuesday 1st of October 2013 07:44:08 PM

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Hi fifi! wow, it sounds like a truly magical night, to see Damien perform live like that, what a dream come true!

Thank you for posting, I ave been looking forward to hearing about his performance and the performances of the other actors. curtains

I am not familiar with Toby Litt's short story, will have to remedy that straight away..and try to imagine Damien reading it. The author himself posted his glowing critique of Damien's performance on his twitter page today:



 



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Apologies all for the total braindump here.  Obviously others will remember different things from last night, but here's my story.

I should say Thanks once again to Laura for getting me my ticket - I really do appreciate it as I was on my hols and could do very little to get my own.

Anyway...

I arrived at Victoria at 5.30 to meet up with Laura first; the poor woman's first view of me involved me shoving cake down my throat, lol! 

We then got the tube to Green Park where we met Shoe, Brookesey and someone else who I can't remember now (oops!), possibly Fifi, then went on to the venue. We called Su from there and found out she and Becca and a couple of others were in the pub; Shoe and Brookesey went over but Laura and I couldn't be arsed - neither of us wanted to drink much (and I didn't want to walk too much in my heels, lol!) - so we stayed outside the Arts Club.

Lisa (ScifyGeek) turned up about 5 minutes later, so we hung around a little until Laura decided to go in and ask if we could go in without the rest of the group. So she popped inside and I was chatting with Lisa when I spotted Damien crossing the road! He wasn't really looking our way, which is fair enough - didn't want my first meeting to be lurking outside - but I did nudge Lisa to say "that's him!"

When Laura came out, she said that he was inside and had very briefly spoken to him - that's her nugget to provide - and that we could go in if we wanted, so we rang the others again to find out they'd ordered chips in the pub...so we thought "sod this" and went inside.

The venue is PLUSH! I dread to think how much it costs to be a member! It didn't feel too stuffy, but I suspect they probably looked askance at all of us last night; we probably didn't fit their profile, lol!

We handed our coats into the cloakroom and wandered downstairs. There weren't many people around at this point and I think if we'd had a decent opportunity to collar Damien then, we may have got something good out of him (not photos or anything though, I felt we should wait til later for that - more fool me, lol!), but he was chatting with the organisers then moved a small curtained off area where the performers were sitting.  I think he said "Hi" at that point, but can't remember.  Was too busy staring - oops!

Appearance note:- he was wearing his black polo shirt that he wore for the Armani thing (I think) plus a hairyish blue cardigan that was so not needed for this weather, lol, jeans and shiny black trainers. Hair is pretty long up top but short at the back - needs a trim in my view - and the beard is back.

Laura and I went to the bar and I bought her a drink (and nearly died at the cost!) then she wandered off to ask the organisers if we could sit or not as we had the cheap tickets. She said probably not, but to wait and see, so we went and stood back at the bar - Lisa had bought a £40 ticket as that was all that was available yesterday, so she bagsied a seat right at the front! Obviously, the biggest advantage to standing at the bar was the fact that it was right next to the little "VIP" area, so we could have a subtle (yet probably not subtle) stare at Damien! We also got chatting to a photographer who was stood next to us and found out he's the photographer for the venue; Laura was trying to work her charms on him a little to find out how to get some pics!

By then, everyone else had arrived - in a big bundle of people - so whilst I got introduced to everyone, I didn't do very well in remembering all the names, so great apologies if I didn't say much!

The performances were about to start and not all the seats were taken, so the organisers encouraged us to take the remaining spares. Su, Becca, Brookesey, Shoe and I all descended on this poor couple who thought they'd got a booth to themselves and plonked ourselves on their seats and some pouffes in front! It was just to the left of the stage (looking at it) so I only got a side view in the end, but it was lovely to watch...and was completely gutted my Minidisc wasn't working because a recording would have been amazing! (they videoed it, so I don't know if there's anything we can do to try and get a copy of that, or find out if it gets put online??)

Damien was on first, which was brilliant, but a little annoying because it meant we got the best bit first. As you know, he read "People Carry Roses" by Toby Litt and the story was nothing like the title, lol! I was expecting something relatively serious about love and instead got a story about a guy and a missing record! Obviously, that's a very simplistic view of the story, but that was essentially it.

He read it in what I believe is his natural accent - certainly Irish anyway - and it's just so melifluous, it kinda washes over you! He did all the voices as well: gruff for the friend's Dad and all husky for the friend's Mom, who was obviously trying to get it on with the protagonist; even Toby himself commented that it wasn't quite how he'd written it, but it had worked, lol.

Oh yes, right at the end, he turned to those of us on his direct right and kind of blew his cheeks out in a "thank God that's over" style. I don't know whether that was just him doing that or whether it was on purpose because he recognised a few of us...?

After he was done, he took a seat in the booth directly opposite where we were sat, which meant that it was easy to be distracted from the other performers and have a crafty look over, lol.

The next two performances were interesting as well. "Under The Minarets" took a little while to get going in my opinion but was a sweet tale of love with family/race obligations running through it (if that makes sense?) and "Prepositions" was amazing. Elizabeth McGovern is a real talent and the story was really moving - a story worth paying for definitely. I may even have a go at reading "We Need to Talk About Kevin" as I was really impressed by Lionel Shriver's storytelling.

At the interval, we all got up and headed back to the bar. I wandered off to the loo and almost crashed into Ben Miller who was on the way out of the Gents! Then we did that typically British thing of hopping to and fro and not actually getting past each other, for which I apologised profusely!

After nearly collapsing on the floor after Laura was charged a tenner for two Diet Cokes, I stayed chatting with Laura, Becca, Helen (I think) and Louise. Damien turned up and was talking to some guys at the bar who he obviously knew, so we just stayed where we were chatting. As he finished and went back to the booth at the front, he had to shimmy past us, so said "Hey girls!", but said it so fast we couldn't get a reply out! (as an aside, I'm beginning to wonder whether he thought we were all just incapable of speech, lol!) 

Anyway, the second half was as good as the first. Becca and I elected to stay at the bar as it was really warm down the front, even though the woman hosting - Cedering - was desperate for us to sit down; got quite amusing actually!

The final two performances were completely different. "Dreamwork" was probably the least fleshed out story in my opinion, didn't really float my boat, but Ben Miller was amazing. He really made the story come to life, accents and all, and was really really brilliant. All in all, the whole thing was really enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it as a night out, especially at £20!

Bizarrely though, at the end, we all hung around waiting for Damien, but everyone else literally scarpered! It was weird! So, of course, we ended up being the only ones left and I felt a little strange as all the performers and writers were asked by the photographer for a group picture. Su and a couple of others got another drink, but the rest of us were just loitering really; then, all of a sudden, he was gone. He squeezed round the side opposite to where we were standing and disappeared. A couple of us commented and said maybe he'd gone to the loo and would come back, but two minutes morphed into five and everyone else was leaving, the bar was closing and it was obvious that he'd just gone, so I can understand why people were aggrieved (I was as well, I admit), but we were still a big group and I think he just wanted to get home...we were probably too many...and I can't comment about "crazy woman" as I didn't see anything myself and wasn't around when the guys had the problems getting in - I'll leave others to explain what happened.

Anyway, after that disappointment, we all headed towards the tube. A number of people had trains to catch so they disappeared off quick and myself, Laura, Su, Becca and Shoe all went to a pub by the station and had another drink there, which was fun.  I caused great consternation by announcing that a taxi from Green Park home would cost £50 which was why I was getting on the tube to go home and couldn't randomly traverse Central London looking for an open bar!

And that was it. Thanks to Laura for not abandoning me and all the others for letting some strange person join the group.  I had a lovely time and am hoping the next Damien trip won't be too long away - or, actually, another Word Theatre; I really enjoyed it!



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Lovely pic of the two of you, Laura. Agree that Damien spent a lot of time playing with his hair, those luscious locks, lol!

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Damiac
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It sounds like a wonderful evening, apart from the mysterious red coat lady that is.

I was about on Twitter when people started talking about what had happened to Damien though the exact circumstances are sketchy. All i can think of is that it must've been serious enough if Damien requested the person not be allowed entrance. There are boundaries and 99.99% of us know when and when not to cross them. Damien comes across as quite shy so whatever happened, this hug or whatever it was, obviously unnerved him. She could've been carrying a weapon for example (extreme example i know...)

Those of us who have had the fortune to have met him, some more than once, have been lucky and i don't think we should blame ourselves for this one person's lack of good manners or class. He was lovely to us during the Travelling Light run, the BH filming as well as If You Don't Let Us Dream run. It's normal to talk about it, to want to share our experiences and if someone read such tweets or whatever and reacted the way she did, that's on her. He's not public property, no person has a right to do that or have that done to them. I still wonder what, if anything, was going through her mind and what was going through her mind afterwards. It's mind-boggling. I sincerely hope that this hasn't changed Damien's accessibility to his more genuine, respectful fans but i really wouldn't be surprised if he does become a little more cautious and a little less accessible and if that happens then it will be an absolute shame.

But PradaKat and Laura, thank you so much for sharing your experiences, it sounds right up my street, Damien taking part or not.

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