THE FELINE OF THE SPECIES

Funny girl Anne Gildea charts the long and grinding road to her solo shows.

From when I was a little kid I dreamed of being in ‘Show Biz’; sequins and silks, feathers and champagne on the chaise longue when a glam chap bursts through the elegant doors in the early AM with the first edition papers shouting, “Darling, you’re a hit!”…

The concept was low on practicality, high on escapism.

I just needed somewhere a world away from the wellies, the turf, the rain, the bullocks and the mucky gaps I grew up with in rural Sligo. Meanwhile, the only performance experience I was getting was singing to indifferent chickens down the haggard.

It wasn’t until I moved to London in 1987, after doing a degree in Dublin, that I realised I simply had to be on stage.

I’ve pretty much been a full time writer/performer ever since, doing everything in those early days from theatre-in-education, street theatre, cabaret, performance art in nightclubs, and that other big C – comedy.

I started on the London circuit in 1989 with two other girls in a sketch trio we called Doris Karloff. That inevitably led to doing stand-up, followed by a scholarship to drama college in London (ALRA), after which I moved back to Dublin, got a break as a writer/performer on a twice-weekly live telly show on RTE called The Gerry Ryan Tonight Show, and then an even bigger break when Sue Collins, Tara Flynn and I came together to form The Nualas.

The whole sequined-wellies, farm-girl super-group vibe of The Nualas, was, in a funny way, all I’d ever wanted. Through multiple line-ups and a few stops and starts The Nualas had an amazing innings. We toured everywhere from New York to Limerick, meeting everyone from Prince Andrew to Twink along the way.

We finally hung up our shiny boots just before the pandemic hit. By then in my early 50s, and with a million other ‘showbizzy’ things under my belt, I thought, maybe it’s time to do something sensible. But in flash it was 1988 all over again! I just had to ‘put on a show’! So I wrote How to Get the Menopause and Enjoy It. And it was a hit!

That inspired me to take my solo self on the road, and I really haven’t looked back since, with my latest paean to the pain of being the female of the species, Further Adventures In Womaning, hitting The Whale on March 28th and 29th.

We might even allow a few lads in. Maybe.

Anne Gildea’s Further Adventures In Womaning is at The Whale on Friday, March 28th and Saturday 29th, tickets here: https://whaletheatre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873647799