Pakie O’Callaghan will bring his one-man show A Celebration of the Stories of Eamon Kelly to Listowel International Storytelling Festival on Saturday September 21st at 8.30pm.
The show developed out of an RTE radio programme that went out in the autumn of 2022 to mark international storytelling day. Pakie was invited to tell a couple of stories on the programme and as a lifelong admirer of Kelly he opted to tell two of the master storytellers’ stories. He was subsequently invited to do a full length show based on Kelly’s stories and “a celebration of the stories of Eamon Kelly” is the result.
Eamon Kelly has been one of O’Callaghan’s theatrical heroes since O’Callaghan’s teenage years and he fondly remembers listening with his father to Kelly on Dinjo’s “Take the floor” which went out for many years on Sunday nights on Radio Eireann and later on to Kelly’s own programme “The Rambling House”. O’Callaghan remembers being transfixed by Kellys performances in his one man shows “In my Fathers Time”, “Bless me Father” and “Stonemad” which were performed to packed houses at The Everyman Theatre and which won widespread acclaim both in Ireland and internationally. A Celebration of the Stories of Eamon Kelly will be a trip down memory lane for many but O’Callaghan is hoping to also develop a new audience for these stories which he describes as universal and timeless and always very, very funny.
In a long career Pakie O’Callaghan has worked on stage, TV and radio. In the mid-nineties he featured in the RTE radio sketch series Shortt Circuit and subsequently played a lead role in the TV series Bull Island in which he is remembered fondly for playing, among others, the then minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy. He did many of the political “voices” on Tonight with Vincent Brown and also appeared in Browns TV series Midnight Court. In 2004 Pakie joined Joe Duffy’s Funny Friday Show as a writer/performer and has been there ever since.
Tickets for Pakie’s show can be booked through St. John’s Theatre at 068 22566 or online at www.stjohnstheatre.ie. Visit www.kerrywritersmuseum.com for information on Listowel International Storytelling Festival.
