Stayed out till late afterwards with Owen, Billy, a gaggle of Belfast women, and most of the actors in the play, including the too-humble and always-considerate Conleth Hill. An interesting discussion between them about the level of fame and success they've achieved: they feel they've got the best of both worlds, being honoured and paid for their craft, but without the level of recognition given to another member of the cast, the Cold Feet and Murphy's Law star James Nesbitt.
Jimmy is given the full tabloid prying treatment, which he jokes about brilliantly in conversation, but has clearly been hurt by.
Mind you, the amount of female attention he gets probably doesn't hurt:
Eight of us went to a pool & snooker bar during their rehearsals a few weeks ago, and he got a couple of phone numbers per game. I didn't!
Generous man as well - eight meals arrived during the pool tournament.
This is the second of Owen's West End plays, after three were on at the National, where he was writer in residence a couple of years ago.
The only playwrights to win the same major awards as Owen McCafferty have been Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter.
He picks up Belfast slang and also invents his own. It's a circular process, whereby Irish people recognise lots of their own words, but then begin using ones he's invented because it's been enshrined in 'art'.
"Work - work - y'know what work is, it's a fuckin' con - work lets ye think ye
can sprint like a gazelle, then it straps lead boots roun' yer plates a
meat. I've a few shillins in ma sky rocket look at me I'm a king."
Most Northern Ireland slang is similiar in style to Cockney rhyming slang, although the words and phrases coined are often different.
What's most fascinating about Owen's plays to me is how localised the dialogue is, how potentially alien it might be, and yet it's so hugely popular that not only is his work being produced in the Anglophone world, but it's being translated into many different languages.
Those of you who speak other languages, how would you translate:
"goin' down the battle cruiser for a swalley, hit the gargle"
"away roun' t' see his fork an' knife an' wee lad"
"whenever ye feel a bit dankers an' that
have a butchers at the flowers
then go over an' snort their beauty up intil
yer napper make ye feel at one with
the universe, make ye feel glad to be
alive boy."
Easier translation if you read it aloud. Answers on a postcard.
P.S. The title of this blog, "Gas Meter" is what Owen began calling me years ago, and occasionally other Irish people in his circle use this rhyming nickname.
5 comments:
Hey, nice blog, football and everything... strictly speaking, isn't it just Gas?
If you mean, shouldn't the nickname be abbreviated to just the first word, the bit that doesn't rhyme, as most Cockney slang is, the answer seems to be, not as much.
The Irish people I go round with tend to say the whole phrase.
Isit cause they is Irish?
A few people have asked me what the whole exchange, above, is on about. I suppose it isn't that clearly written.
Torbjorn's pointing out that Cockney rhyming slang (eg. 'the dog and bone' instead of 'the phone' is usually said 'the dog') only uses the part of the phrase which DOESN'T rhyme.
So if 'Gas Meter' rhymes with 'Peter', according to that widespread practice, you'd only use 'Gas'.
Owen and others tend to use the full rhyming phrase. Maybe it's simply so his plays can be understood while the dialogue is at full pelt.
I wonder what Irish rhyming slang (or Cockney rhyming slang, for that matter) is for Torbjorn - starter for 10: Shoe!
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