“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

A Funny Thing Didn’t Happen On The Way To The Theatre Last Night …

Off to The Gate for Pinter’s No Man’s Land last night, where I had the very good fortune to find myself sitting beside Barry McGovern (right, realising who he is sitting beside), the finest Beckett actor of his generation and arguably the finest Beckett actor ever. I told him that I had seen him in Romeo and Juliet at The Abbey a few months ago, when he stepped in at the last minute to play Friar Laurence, and did so whilst carrying the book of the play as if it were some holy relic he’d been entrusted with to defend with his life. “I hope that that didn’t spoil it for you,” says he. “Not at all,” says I, “it only gave it an added frisson.”
  Frisson! What I should have said was, “Not at all, sir, it would have been a privilege to be in the same theatre as you even if you were sweeping out the stalls.”
  But I didn’t. When the play was over, Michael Gambon hushed the applause to announce that Harold Pinter himself was in the audience, which provoked a standing ovation. I didn’t get to speak to Pinter, of course, but that’s just as well, because the conversation would probably have gone something like this:
DB: “Alright, Squire? How’re they hanging?”
HP: “…”
DB: “I’ll get my cloak.”
  Ah, the theatre. The roar of greasepaint, the smell of the crowd, etc.

4 comments:

Gerard Brennan said...

Nice.

You could maybe pen a Pinter-esque play based on that situation.

gb

Anonymous said...

He probably couldn't believe his luck...

Do you think Pinter would have been as vocal as that?

Corey Wilde said...

You saw Gambon? There is no word for my shade of green.

Declan Burke said...

What made my night was, when I was leaving, a woman with a Dublin accent that could strip paint brayed, "Jaysus, isn't it ownly luvvly ta see Hardold all da same."

Hardold, she said ...

Cheers, Dec