Irene Melaugh

[Extract courtesy of "Your Local Sunday", May 29th 2005]

I had no idea where the suit was until one of the characters came into the story wearing it.

“I ended up marrying the man who asked me for directions. We got married in the Long Tower Chapel and I moved to America with him. I didn’t stop to think that I was going to a country that I didn’t know, I didn’t worry. I wasn’t smart enough to be worried. I was leaving all my friends and family and it didn’t really hit me until I got there.

US Culture Shock

“When I got there it was a total and utter culture shock. I went to San Francisco a few years ago to visit my son and I found it very much like here, the shopping. television and all the usual mod cons. But when I first arrived in America we had nothing like that here, they were so advanced. They had these massive shopping malls and when I left Derry all we had was Austins and Woolworths.

“The speed of life there was difficult to adjust to. We lived in Buffalo, which was four miles from Niagra Falls, on the border between Canada and America. It was so cold there in the winter. Every house had two doors. In winter a storm door and an inner front door and in summer a screen door to keep the insects out and the same with the windows. Sometimes in winter we would waken to find five feet of snow had fallen overnight and it was an effort just to get out of the house.

“I really missed my family and friends. In Buffalo like most places in America there are many different communities.. German, Polish and Italian, but very few Irish. I lived in the Italian Community and loved it. The Italians are like the Irish, they’re very up front and family orientated and great craic. My neighbours were mostly older people and used to make me pasta and pizza and to this day I still love Italian food. I think they felt sorry for me, they looked on me as a bit of an orphan because my husband’s family lived in Pennsylvania and I had no one else there.

“I lived there for seven years when I became ill. I decided to come home for an extended holiday and never went back.

“When I came home I worked in my brothers shop. I also worked in a jeweller’s shop and did some counselling for Interlink. Over the years I had three more children. I thought about going back to school at different points but the children were more important.

Moving on

Many years later when Irene’s children had grown tip she found herself at a loose end when they all left home within a few months of each other.

“‘The children had been my life for so long and I just woke up one morning and thought: ‘What am I going to do?’ I joined the Galliagh Women’s Group and I was doing a course with them when a tutor from the North West Institute came into verify the work. I wrote a poem for the verifier and she really liked it and not long after that I started tutoring in the North West Institute.

“I joined an all-woman comedy group called ‘Stretchmarks’ and started writing ten minute sketches. It was great experience because it gave me a chance to see how t(i structure something like that, with a beginning, a middle and an end. From time to time I commissioned for local organisations to write sketches about social issues like drug awareness.

They used to ask me, if I could make depression funny and that was the kind of thing I did.

“A friend of mine told me an unusual story about her father’s only suit. It gave me the idea for ‘Me Da’s Suit’.  I really enjoyed writing what would turn out to be my first full length play. When I finished writing it I thought it was a good effort and that I might be able to get some one to stage it. I took it to The Playhouse in Derry where it debuted in October 2003 and played to packed houses every night.”

Irene has enjoyed massive success with ‘Me Da’s Suit and her next play, ‘The Dumped Divorcees Support Group’ is due for release in February.

Meanwhile, Irene is adamant that Derry should have its own soap opera and would have no problem producing such a show.

“This town is hiving with stories and characters, they love to see their own and something like this would go down really well.”

In the meantime Irene is concentrating her efforts on more writing for the stage, with two more plays in the production stage. This former shirtmaker looks set to be gracing our stages again and again in the future.

[Courtesy Derry News, May 17th 2007]

Hot on the heels of two smash hits, local playwright Irene Melaugh brings her third drama based in a Derry hairdressers to the stage this weekend.

Flick brings together a hilarious cast of characters and like Me Da’s Suit and The Dumped Divorcee Support Group – it taps into a rich vein of local humour, wisdom and wisecracks. In typically candid style, Melaugh talks about her love of words and stories and reveals a head teeming with ideas, characters and plots jostling to make it onto page and stage. Flick premieres at the Millennium Forum this Wednesday, May 23 2007 and runs for just four nights. Bookings are through the forum box office on 71 264455.

Irene Melaugh went face to face with Darinagh Boyle.

Where did the idea for Flick come from?

My daughter started up a hairdressing business and it turned out to be a real eye-opener. Don’t get me wrong the craic was brilliant and I got my hair done for nothing. But it’s a difficult business.

Outline the plot for us? 

Lucy is the owner of the hairdressers – she’s had the business 10 years and still has the same 10 clients – all of whom, needless to say, are very different.

Lucy’s played by a brilliant actress Aisling Harley, who’s originally from Derry but has been living in Liverpool – she’s done lots of theatre, TV presenting – things like that and she’s also a fantastic comedic actress.

There’s Mr Jones (Martin O’Brien) who doesn’t speak – he doesn’t actually have any hair but he doesn’t know it and he comes in to have it cut. And he has a big surprise up his sleeve.

Chris Baxter plays a long lost husband who returns unexpectedly from Australia.

Lola is a lady of the night, she has hair but she can’t afford to get it done.

Mini is a recluse, she rings up every week to make an appointment for Friday but she hasn’t been seen in 10 years. That’s until she appears one morning and her life changes forever. She’s played by Anita Peoples, who stole the show in Me Da’s Suit.

I’m in it myself, one of the actors had to pull out so I stepped in, again. And I’m the battleaxe of the play.

Read the rest of this entry »

[Courtesy Derry Journal, 7th November, 2006]

DERRY PLAYWRIGHT Irene Melaugh is set to turn heads with her new play, ‘Fick’ a comedy set in a very Derry hairdressers.

Irene is hoping to bring ‘Flick’ to the stage of the Millennium Forum in May of next year – but she needs a cast of willing Derry actors to help her bring her characters to life.

Irene Melaugh, author of "Flick"

“I’ll be holding open auditions this Saturday to fill the roles,” Irene told the ‘Journal’. “Some of my best actors have been people with no previous experience who had expressed an interest.

Irene’s two previous plays, ‘Me Da’s Suit’ and ‘The Dumped Divorcee’s Support Group’, have both been met with great critical acclaim – mostly because Irene prides herself in writing about situations that have and could actually happen.

“I got the idea for ‘Flick’ from my daughter who is a hairdresser. People seem to tell their hairdresser everything. It’s a wee bit like going to the confessional.

“What I tend to do is think of a situation and let my imagination run wild with it.”

‘Flick’ certainly promises to be an experience Derry theatre go-ers won’t forget in a hurry.

Irene says “Basically it tells the story of Lucy, who is desperate to get married, and wants to head off to Mexico to see the sailor she met on a night out.

“However Lucy’s life is further complicated  by the fact  that the hairdressing business she runs is about to go under.

“The plumber has repossessed her sinks and the only clients she has are Lola, the local ‘lady of the night’, who can’t afford a hair cut, and Mr. Jones who has no hair to cut. He’s been bald since birth but hasn’t noticed.

Pilgrimage to Fatima

“So Lucy tells her domineering mother she is going on a pilgrimage to Fatima, advertises for a helper, and heads off leaving Maurice, the gay would-be hairdresser, at the helm.”

Like Irene’s other two plays, ‘Flick’ is essentially a comedy but deals with other more serious issues.

“The story takes many twists and turns as it unravels the lives of the outrageously funny and totally unforgettable characters who frqquent the salon.”

Now all Irene needs are four leading characters willing to bring her vision to the stage.

“We will be holding open auditions from I p.m.-5 p.m. in the Foyle Room at the Millennium Forum this Saturday.

“The auditions are open to both men and women to fill the four lead roles of Lucy, Lola, Maurice and Mr. Jones and, ideally, the auditionees should be between the ages of 25 to 45.

“Experience is not necessary I would encourage anyone who fancies it just to give it a go.”

[Courtesy of UFORIA, University of Ulster Students' Union Magazine, March 2004]

When I was waiting in the Union on a Monday morning to meet Irene Melaugh I began to panic suddenly. I had been to see her play ‘Me Da’s suit’ a few weeks earlier in The Playhouse, a small theatre just inside the walls in Derry, in which Irene plays the acid tongued Peggy, one of the lead roles, I have been told in reality she is nothing like the character in looks or personality, so I began to wonder whether or not I would recognise the woman behind Derry’s most successful play in recent times. The quiet polite and unassuming woman who arrives to meet me is nothing like what I’d expected. She had got a bit lost on her way here so she apologises and then- settles down for a cup of tea and a chat. As it turns out Irene is no stranger to Magee University, she had been a student here herself for two years studying drama therapy. She has a great respect for the place, her daughter is currently completing her finals here.

It’s reassuring when I discover the abrupt, domineering and intimidating character she plays is nothing like the woman herself. She chats away and has plenty of time for people, always interested to hear people’s views of the play. While Irene has spent her life involved in drama and theatre in different ways, this is her first full length play. In the past she has been involved in work commissioned about community issues such as drugs, alcohol and religious divides. Comedy is never an easy genre to handle, but Irene’s experience is evident in her work. She has written a number of comedy sketches and short stories with a group wittily names “Stretch Marks Unlimited”. While many artists suffer for their work Irene was surprised when I asked her if she ever felt like things were getting too much, if she wanted to give up on the project. “Never, I loved everything about it. I supposed I’m a bit naive, I never looked on it as work, let alone hard work.”

I wanted to know more about how the play came about and Irene has no real answers, “well, it wrote itself really. The characters seemed to determine the course the play took and the final outcome of it. The reason why I wrote it now was as a tribute to my own father who has been dead two years now. He had such a love of literature, but he’s nothing like the character Jim.” I wondered if this was a biographical piece inspired by events and characters in her own life. “My father was a tailor and worked  in Kelly’s on Foyle Street. He made suits for everyone, businessmen, men that worked on the docks, but he used to make himself suits that were unique. The story is based on a true event that happened to my friend Sarah’s mother. Tommy  Bars Pawn Shop was really blown up, and her dad’s suit had been  in the pawn shop, but her mother had been able to replace it. I thought what if the suit had been like one of my fathers, a one off that couldn’t be replaced, and that was the inspiration of the play. Peggy is the only character based on a woman I knew. She had lots of children and was a real rough diamond. Brash, but with a heart of gold.”

So the play is based on real events, with the Troubles as a backdrop, but it is not preoccupied with this, the comedy the dominant factor. It was set in the 1970s for dramatic effect and is about core values which pertain to society in many parts of Northern Ireland today, community life, community identity, and helping a friend in need. It is a play that everyone will see characters they recognize and attitudes they can identify with. “The pawn shop was a part of so many peoples lives. It prevented people from going hungry. It was an ongoing part of permanent hardship. Yet in spite of that we never felt deprived, everyone was in the same situation.” The play  addresses many serious issues through the humour, poverty, male dominance and nationalism, it is certain to have struck a chord with many members of the audience. During one performance, when Jim is giving out to his brow beaten wife, a member of the audience shouted out “go on love, give it to him!” Something perhaps more commonly found on Jerry Springer than in a theatre, but a significant response none the less.

Her own theater company  Darevdevil Productions produced the first run of the show last November. The plays director, Carmel McCafferty is a very well known Derry thespian. Perhaps best known for the title role in “Marie Woman of Derry”, Carmel and Irene have been friends for many years. They first worked together on the play “Packie’s Wake” and Irene has great admiration for Carmel’s work both on stage and behind the scenes. “I known my own limitations and I’ve no experience of directing. To be honest I’m a bit in awe of her. When Carmel took the script she was able to look at a scene from so many different angles. She has the ability to pick out specific bits of a script to make the whole thing brilliant.”

In spite of Irene’s determination and commitment , the whole process of getting the play from page to stage was by no means an easy task. Funding was impossible to secure in the beginning, both the Arts Council and Funds For All rejected her applications for funding. Unsure what to do next, The Playhouse offered a solution. Irene attributes a lot to The Playhouse. “It provides such a wonderful nurturing venue for playwrights. They encourage and support local talent, help them develop their confidence and of course guarantee everyone a great time.”

The plays success has been incredible. Since it’s premier it has had four runs in Derry alone, twice in The Playhouse, and it is in the process of being prepared for festivals and tours throughout the summer and Irene is obviously delighted with the response. “It couldn’t have been any better, even in Hollywood!” If the success in Derry is anything to gage it by, it looks like Broadway could be an option.The news of the play has spread and Irene has managed to remain a local celebrity, but for how long? The New Years Eve edition of John Daily’s radio show had Irene and Carmel on as guests, a sign of what’s to come perhaps.

Her next play sounds like it is definitely going to be worth checking out. Boldly entitled “Dumped Divorcee Support Group” the mind boggles as to what twists and turns it holds. Our own Bar Manager at Magee who appeared as “Me Da”, is returning to the stage yet again in March, this time as a transvestite, so all you regulars can’t afford to miss it! Another familiar face from the show appearing at the Union shortly  in his band The Spanker Weed Merchants (mmmmm?) is Brendan McCallion who played the lovable goof Mincer.

“Dumped Divorcee Support Group” is opening The Big Tickle, a weeklong comedy festival at The Playhouse, on the 10th March. For more details contact the box office on 028 71268027.