‘The ALL STAR Wars’

THE country’s first full scale theatrical production inspired by hurling, the nation’s  game, is coming to UCH on Friday May 25, 8pm. ‘The ALL STAR Wars’ is a comedy with an original score and cast of ten playing a multiplicty of characters. Described as “D’unbelievables meets Monty Python meets ‘The Wizard of Oz'”, it has sold out three weeks in Waterford and toured from The Olympia to Cork Opera House. This year it returns by demand to several venues.

Arts page met up with ‘The ALL STAR Wars’ co-creator Kevin McCormack in the Clarion Hotel to discuss this GAA pastiche that is packing them in. McCormack, an actor, writer and NLP coach, has penned the show with Brian Flynn. Flynn is the man behind theatre’s ‘Michael Collins’, ‘FAME – The Musical’ and much more. He has written the music and shares song-writing honours with McCormack.
“‘The ALL STAR Wars’ premiered in Cork Opera House in February 2011 and moved on to Glór, then Theatre Royal in Waterford for a sell-out week,” begins the production story with McCormack. “Then myself and the other actors had commitments in pantomime and so on so we regrouped after Christmas in The Olympia for a run in February. It was on to another sell out week in  Waterford and we have just done another three nights in the Olympia”.
Friday May 25 here is about testing local audience reaction to this large-scale production that takes 22 cast and crew on the road to stage. The storyline is whacko. Hark to what the Fermoy based actor has to say:
“I play family man and GAA coach, Hugh Cullen who has a teenage son (Colin Hughes) and a wife Carmel (Valerie Ryan) who is a GAA widow. I mean, she has been through 13 washing machines in 20 years of marriage, she has washed so many team jerseys.  Hugh gets a visit from a character based 1000 years into the future, Obi Wan Camogie, who tells him that the high King Henry Shefflin has never been defeated in 1000 years of All-irelands. Apparently the only one who can do so is a direct decesendent of Cú Chulainn, who Hugh is”.
McCormack, a warm and sane  man, says all this with a straight face and eyebrows raised.
“Happily, ‘The  ALL STAR Wars’ is a very funny show, the gags just keep coming at you, the songs are great and it culiminates in an epic battlescene that is hurling carnage”.
The musical director is David Hayes (‘FAME – The Musical’; ‘The Voice of Ireland’), while Marty Morrissey and Mícháel Muircheartaigh make recorded appearances as sports commentators. Book for this fast-moving novelty on www.uch.ie or 061-331549.