WOMEN of Limerick, regard yourselves with pride. Twink (Adele King) has warned her co-stars in the coming show Mum’s the Word that “the Limerick audience is a hottie”.
“Can I tell you how looking forward we are to playing at the concert hall? In Limerick, we can hear the buzz before we go on stage, there’s an anticipation, a feeling that we are going to be in good hands”.
Twink should know. She wowed local audiences in two comedies here already, Dirty Dusting and in Menopuse the Musical. On Friday June 5 and Saturday 6 she brings with her a starry cast for Mum’s the Word. Having run for 10 weeks in The Tivoli, the nationwide tour of 13 weeks is stopping at UCH and “the proof is in the pudding, this show is going down a storm. Every single night on tour to date we have got a standing ovation”.
She has praise unlimited for the fellow cast of Flo McSweeney (Moving Hearts), Nelli Conroy (The Van), Eileen Gibbons and Anna Fox for their ability on stage and comraderie off.
“We have become extraordinarily good friends. I think the audience pick up on that. We’re like peas in a pod now and that’s unusual for a group of actresses travelling together”.
Mum’s the Word is produced by Robert C. Kelly, a savvy Scotsman who realised the dearth of theatre shows for women, that international constituency which buys tickets. He’s the man who backed Mum’s the Word when five Canadian working women wrote it together on foot of their experiences as mothers. According to Twink, “he has been buying up shows such as these which are for women and often by women. There are more – I’ve another four scripts waiting at home”.
This one hit international jackpot across the North Atlantic and it’s a demanding series of roles for the Irish actresses. Much of the comedy is in each of the characters’ reactions to the others’ monologues.
Talking to Arts page, Twink is in a Galway hotel suite, on cortisone and inhalers to keep asthma problems in check.
“The voice is strong and good, thank God,” she says, juggling press on various phones. Daughters Chloe and Naomi and the poor health of family mutt Bertie Ahern, their pitbull terrier, all feature in conversation. She speaks in absolutes and exclamation marks, constantly drawing on her well of experience to justify tack.
On Mum’s the Word: “The whole show is anecdotal, stories by the five main characters interwoven. It’s a slow burner to the end of Act 1 and then Act 2 really takes off with a life of its own”.
Be warned, it’s over 16s and if Twink senses a younger presence in the audience, know she took action in Castlebar to remove children who presented with their obstinate mothers. The hall backed her to the hilt and the show went on.
Twink comes across as an overwhelming force, one with her heart in the right place. She makes no bones of having stretched show director Wayne Harrison, Sydney Opera House, with an ultimatum to translate this international hit from its Canadian context to an Irish one to better serve it and its audience.
Fear? Adele King doesn’t know the word. Her language is bracing but never coarse as funny stories spill out. Her focus is her responsibility as entertainer, to the show de jour, to the audience. She seems made for her part as Barbara, the only one of the comedy’s writers who works in theatre. “Her character’s stories are more spiky, more animated than the others…she moves around on stage a lot more,”
Mum’s the Word. Expect a realistic, ballsy, witty look at life once you’ve given birth. 8pm curtain, www.uch.ie, June 5 and 6.
