A Simple story full of laughter and loss

‘Corner Boys’, directed by Marian Brophy, comes to Roscommon Arts Centre on Thursday 28th February at 8 pm. From the writer who brought ‘Who By Fire’ to audiences across Ireland and Europe comes a new play full of laughter, love, missed opportunities and tragedy. Set in the early 1960s when JFK is visiting Ireland, two shop assistants fantasise about the American president. On the street corners, a sinister and bleaker life is being lived by Billy and Sparrow, two corner boys. In the church the parish priest advises his parishioners on how their lives should be lived and slowly life goes on in the small country town. Seasons pass, everything changes and life moves on. In America, president Kennedy is assassinated and in the small rural town love and jealousy rear their heads with sometimes hilarious and sometimes tragic consequences. Booking at (090) 66 25824. Meanwhile don’t forget that Saturday next sees the arrival of Des Keogh in Roscommon with his one-man show ‘The Love-Hungry Farmer’. Adapted from John B. Keane’s ‘Letters of a love-Hungry Farmer’, this hugely show has been a hit in New York, Edinburgh and in many Irish venues. Following the many tales of a love-sick farmer in his 50s, the audience is entertained with stories of humour, humiliation, love and loneliness. In his desperation, farmer John Bosco McLane even enlists the aid of professional matchmaker Dicky Mick Dicky O’Connor to work his magic and find him a woman. The results of the doomed efforts of the two men are often at the same time hilarious and crushing as John Bosco falls further and further into desperation and loneliness.