Look Out There's Seven Drunken Nights This Week!

Seven Drunken Nights

Theatre Severn

Tuesday May 14th 2019

There is just so much to this show incredibly enjoyable and in some places exhilarating. One believes the people of Shrewsbury suspected it might be a good one as the theatre was packed. They were right.

Seven Drunken Nights is the story in Song, Words and Music of the great Irish band, The Dubliners. Framed in the studio of The Late, Late Show The Dubliners were there to play for the final time ever. Then off they went on a wonderfully chosen back catalogue of Dubliners material. Sounding uncannily like them the show was high energy and instantly likeable.

The back line was Guitars, Mandolin, Long Whistle and the most compelling fiddler I have seen in some time and I have sen a lot, this guy is brilliant. His mantra seemed, if your throwing in a harmonic make it a meaty one, he did and the beautiful notes hung from his violin like grapes on the vine, just waiting to be plucked.

Cleverly there is a subtext to this show as the music was wild and fiery, as Ireland was at that time and one found oneself thinking of how hard it must have been for the Dubliners to go anywhere out of Ireland. But they did and troubles or not they were loved by all. They claimed to be a non political band and that is what they were.  So many bands chose to stay at home or wouldn’t travel because of their association with the troubles and that was sad then and may well be again.

However their narrative was much more about the changing ways of Dublin and the acceptance of modernity to the detriment of some wonderful Irish traditions.

So from the front songs like, Fields of Athenry, Raglan Road, South Australia (I was born) and of course The Rare Auld Times, flew out to a delighted audiences' ears and how ready they were to sing and play. Even this reviewer let a few notes go out into the theatre with everybody else. One couldn’t help it it is so catchy.

An important factor was the cast's respect for the people who were the Dubliners, never once did these boys claim to be them, they made it clear they were just some incredibly clever singers and musicians who want us all to pay our respects together to one of the most exciting Irish Folk Bands of the 20/21st century.

This is a great fun show, beautifully sung and played and importantly an acceptable amount of BPI as well. BPI? You ask…beard per inch. The Dubliners always had great BPI as do these boys. One might declare that a draw. But for winning go and see this show: it is all about winning. I know that these lads are just coming to  the tours' end, they have done nigh on 40 shows and yet they were as fresh and ready as if they had been rehearsing for this one show so it had to be good for us all.. Luckily  it was.

This is a Five Star Review

Owen J.Lewis