On Saturday 29 May, at 7.30 BST, we are delighted to be hosting a double bill live concert in the theatre, in front of a small, select audience. The two musicians concerned both performed at the launch concert for Xanadu Online theatre back in September 2020. The gig will be recorded and streamed to a larger audience at a later date. In the meantime, both artists have given us a taster to be getting on with!
Suzanne Ledwith is a multimedia artist from Mullingar. Something stirred once Suzanne heard and saw a guitarist playing. After a few weeks of friends showing her chords and mastering the F major chord quickly, she knew she had to have a guitar. Enter a KC 110, parlour style, nylon string acoustic with a heavy bass end. Fingerstyle songs, her favourites.
She was asked to join a band and went from bedroom to pub corner to stage, to festivals and then competitions. Her first band was with Patricia Raleigh on lead and rhythm guitar and Suzanne on lead vocals and acoustic guitar. Later joined by Monica Raleigh on bass guitar and Paul Muldoon on drums, they were known as Dreams of Id.
“Suzanne Ledwith has the voice of an angel.” – Hotpress magazine
Suzanne went solo after the band broke up, then to college to do a BA in Music and Philosophy in NUI Maynooth. She returned to Mullingar and began to work as a teacher in the Further Education Sector, where she still works. She completed a Higher Diploma in Further Education in NUI Maynooth and finally a Masters in Community Music in Limerick University, which influenced her musical style, prompting her to explore more folk and world music.
During the Higher Diploma, she began playing with Steve O’Keeffe (The Pale) on drums and percussion and later Bernard Byrne (The Pale) on bass guitar and Roger Mullarkey on wooden flute. Darren Flynn mixed a 7 track EP (Darren studio recorded 4 tracks, and Frank Byrne live recorded 3), called Change of Address. This was released in 2006 with gigs in Crawdaddy, Dublin and The Stables, Mullingar.
Suzanne played live with Dónal Lunny and Máirtín O’Connor at the Festival of Fires, at the Hill of Uisneach in Co Westmeath in 2012, and for the past few years’ she has been working on an album project with Dónal when time allows.
“Suzanne Ledwith’s songs are unique. They carry the emotional charge that music and lyrics can deliver when they are expressed by a true artist.” – Dónal Lunny
Three of the songs from this ongoing project have just been released as an EP. Where lines Meet was recorded by Suzanne, mixed and pre-mastered by Dónal Lunny and mastered by Ivan O’Shea (live Sound Engineer with Danú). Here’s a taster of both the EP (which you can buy here) and the concert: Leaving Ireland.
BoyManDead is the musical alias of Chris Levens. Mainly because he was bored of just saying his own name when he did gigs or promoted his stuff. It kind of backfired as he still has to say it so you actually know who he is and he can take credit. Chris hails from the United Kingdom, more specifically the unassuming county of West Sussex.
Having picked up a guitar a little later in life, he finds himself in his early-to-mid-thirties at a level some have called “relatively proficient” and by which his mum is extremely impressed. He’s played in a few different bands over the years, in amongst performing on his own. Influences include Kurt Vile, Bon Iver, Jeff Buckley, Neil Young and The Eagles to name but a few. The resulting effect is always soulful, lyrically intricate and hopefully with a catchy tune woven in there somewhere.
In addition to the music, Chris is also a professional actor and has appeared in shows in London’s West End as well as many regional playhouses throughout the UK. More recently, he play the part of Ivan Vassilevitch in Xanadu Online Theatre’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Proposal in December 2020.
He’s currently based in California’s Bay Area where he lives with his wife Ariel. Here’s a sample of what’s in store for his audience on 29 May: California Winter.
Do you read on an e-reader? Do you buy electronic books? Do you buy paper books from stores that may or may not collate your purchases and share them with Amazon and the likes, anyway? Do you use apps like Goodreads to get recommendations, store read and want to read type lists, and to share read books with connections?
In the recent past, I may or may not have done work that may or may not have involved none or several public libraries. Whilst data protection and privacy were not the focus of that particular piece of work, the subject matter was a subset. Discussion centred around the usefulness of maintaining user reading history versus the expectation of privacy. Librarians like to have access to the list to recommend, when asked, however, the potential to profile (via the electronic management system) the individual using their reading list exists. Librarians generally voted in favour of not retaining the user history and rather discussing with the user asking for recommendations at the time. With the ability to shape the thoughts of a community, librarians are far more powerful than I think they realise.**
“It took me over 2.5 years to complete this 9 coloured fairisle-like wrap cardigan, adapted from Marie Wallin’s Izmir. It was worth it!”
“This Haute Alpine cabled jumper by Vladimir Teriokhin’s gives an interesting take on classic Aran designs. A beautiful piece for any wardrobe.”
“This 5 colour jumper using Marie Wallin’s Karolin is surprisingly easy as it was completed using mosaic knitting, where only stripes used with some stitches skipped and slipped.”
“This knit and crochet design based on a pattern from Italian magazine, Mani di Fata, contrasts the two techniques well.”
“Connie is a fine lace keyhole jumper with ribbing details and the pattern was designed by Jennie Atkinson. Perfect for dress wear.”
Notes From Xanadu – the online arts centre – is one year old today! We 
Going forward, the plan for the arts centre is to release work as an when suitable submissions are received, and to share news about what’s going on in the theatre, rather than having a regular slot each week. There will be posts in Twitter and Facebook when this happens, but alongside that a mailing list will be set up, so that anyone who wants to can be notified whenever new stuff is released. We will let you know when that is in place.
Yes, those phone calls would be awkward at first: “Well, I guess it is strange how we’re all sick again this Friday boss, but (pinches nose, coughs) I rilly habe a bery bad cold.” Yes, there would be fury at first. Yes, some of us, many of us, might be fired. But we would be fired for the greater good. You can’t make an omelette without a few pioneers getting arrows in their backs.
The Watchers
Back to the awkwardness. For a while, it just looked like the Covid Stone. Then it started looking like a real baby. I was stuck at home, as we all were. Going literally nowhere except to hospital appointments by myself. Time went on and it was just too late to say anything on all the work video calls. I mean, what do you do? Stand up and show off your belly in an ‘accidental’ side shot? Yawn and stretch? Or do you interrupt proceedings with an “excuse me I have some news?” While debating these various different and equally awkward scenarios, so much time passed that it was nearly time to have the actual baby. And then he arrived early. So then the message had to very quickly turn into “hey, I’m off here now for a bit of personal time, but not for too long. No, I don’t have Covid. BRB”-type messages. AFK for a few days.
Ar bhord íseal sa tseomra suite bhí an clár fichille. É foirfe fós, na píosaí go léir ina n-inead féin. Bhí Daithí ina shuí sa chathaoir uillinn, ag fanacht le go n-imeodh an teannas as a chuid matán. Bhí sé tar éis lá cruaidh a chur isteach, fear mar é, go raibh mórán idir lámha aige. Chaith sé braon fuisce siar. Dhóigh an leacht a scórnach, ach b’in é a bhí uaidh.
Then a series of bags and containers that have to be assembled very carefully in a specific order, Russian doll-like, when you do the actual test. Weird, I thought I’d already started, and then I notice in the book of instructions – that was in the bag – that I shouldn’t open the bag without washing my hands for 20 seconds, and that I should also clean all the surfaces before I get them out, but I haven’t finished the box; but then I shouldn’t have started, because I’ve got to clean everything first. How the fuck am I meant to know that, as, to read it, I’ve had to open the bag? So now I clean everything because it’s wrong. Could have Covid on it. So I go back and I wipe everything and I think I’d better finish the box, or maybe not? Maybe I should unfold and start all over again, in case I’ve missed something in the instructions? When I do read the instructions, I say “thank goodness I didn’t just see the big cotton bug and stick it up my nose and throat,” and then it tells me to do that anyway, but it must be an hour before the collection at our priority letter box, and we mustn’t touch anything with the cotton bud apart from two and half centimeters up my nose and the back of my throat. By this time I’m feeling so much better: I mean I’ve made the box, laid everything out and I’ve cleaned everything three time,s and I’ve learnt a lot about my area and where our priority post boxes aren’t, probably super spreading all the while. So then I find the link to the you tube video – which is handily in the booklet – so much easier to click on a link in paper instruction booklet – or rather it isn’t – but I manage to type it and link to Ali, the nice man who explains everything handily and simpl,y including which things might not be in the kit they’ve sent me. He says he know it’s a bit fiddly and frustrating but not too much he hopes, as I guess I could be feverish and confused at this point. He then reminds me to wash my hands for twenty seconds exactly. I nearly scald myself with the tap, but guess that’ll kill Covid as well. He also shows me how to stick a cotton bud in my throat and up my nose without touching anything else with the fabric. This all needs to go into the tube with liquid, and I must snap off the handle and close the tube without contaminating the contents. At this point I have a headache and have discovered how to stimulate a gagging reflex from the back of my throat without touching anything else. But have I rubbed my tonsils, and who knew they weren’t the dangly bits, for fecks sake? Also, this is where it goes into a second tube- that I don’t have – and into two bags: one labelled bio hazard and the other with a pinch seal. All in a specific order, which is then all packaged in my handcrafted origami box, which has a special seal sticker that is in the bag in the box. Bollocks; still, it’s all part of a test, so I backtrack and seal the box thankfully with all the contents. I’m now running late for the priority collection, so in my feverish and somewhat confused state I, masked to the eyeball, stagger to the priority post box, narrowly evading non-socially-distancing pedestrians who ring the post box.
Merry New Year to all of you! I went AWOL for a good reason there – to be revealed in the next column as The Most Socially Awkward Thing I Did in 2020 and Ever.* In any case, here we are. Locked down. Again. The third time over. Well, it’s more like the second time, as the time before this didn’t really count. Or did it? Time is a bit hazy at the moment. I find my mind reverts back to our Southern Hemisphere, South African calendar in a Clockwork Orange-type blip from time to time. Is it the start of the school year? Is it the end? What’s happening? It feels like July, but it’s not. Will summer ever come back? If I start posting pictures of crossed out I I I Is send help!
Other coping slash distraction mechanisms include binge watching series. Schitt’s Creek has opened up a world of meme-age.***** We’re onto Brooklyn 99 now. It’s making me regret not going into the police service and becoming a detective (that is one of my lesser-known regrets – I think I would have made a very good detective. I also have a queue of schmaltzy 90s and 2000s romantic comedies to get through; Sweet Home Alabama ticked off that list. Mental chewing gum is where it is at.
In any case, fuck Brexit. Really. I don’t say much about it publicly, but I am sad it actually happened. I’m sad for all that could have been and now never will be. I’m sad for people who believe they’re so much better than everybody else that they put walls up, slam doors shut, and retreat. Small people with small minds. Nationalism turned disease. There, I said it. Ugh. In protest, I check out my items on Amazon one by one,******* while I watch my romcoms, eating alcoholic milkshakes and dreaming of UBI and communal gardens.
