Nenagh Arts Centre to host a number of entertaining events in the coming weeks

Nenagh Arts Centre are hosting some exciting events over the coming weeks. Among these events will be the very entertaining show, 'Small Plastic Wars.'

Back in 2013 actor Pat McGrath found a new lease of life by using his life-long hobby of model-making as material for Small Plastic Wars, his debut play as a writer which toured Ireland as part of the Bealtaine Festival in 2014.

“Writing is something I always played around with,” Pat said. A friend said he should write something about model-making as he had been at it for years, so he decided on the topic and tied it in with the recession and made it a personal story.

This is not just a play about model making there is a very personal story of a family man traumatized and numbed by the recession. The main character in the play is Joe, a guy who breezed through life during the Celtic Tiger years and who didn’t go wild spending money. Suddenly, he finds himself without a job, with plenty of time to build models that he has collected over the years.

For a while he hides in the fantasy world, his wife Shelia even encourages him. The bills keep coming through the door and unknown to Shelia Joe instead uses them as papier-mâché for bases for his models. His family still needs to eat and his little daughter is making a wish list for Christmas and Joe wonders how they can manage.

This is a funny show with pathos in there, in which Pat plays a number of characters. Dipping in and out of his regular meetings with his fellow modelers we get a comic insight to a world where grown men meet to discuss gluing bits of plastic together, including a larger than life character from Tipperary.

This is a funny, funny play, even though Joe falls apart a bit before his decency, charm and good nature help him to triumph and overcome the odds in the end. Complete with some fine music from the 80’s. It was short listed for A Stewart Award in 2014 and the play has toured Ireland, Finland, and Paris and following its visit to Nenagh, it’s off to the Celtic Festival at the National Theatre of Wales for a week long run.

This show will be showing at Nenagh Arts Centre, Friday April 22 at 8pm. Tickets- €15/12.50.

Also there is a special online offer of €10 if you book before 5pm on Friday 15th of April.

Other events which will also be taking palce in Nenagh Arts Centre over the coming weeks are as follows;

1. Manuscripts Don’t Burn – Wednesday 20th April, 8:30pm, tickets €5

This highly charged political thriller draws on real events to tell an unfortunately common tale of repression in contemporary Iran. Kasra, an Iranian author who’s been secretly writing his memoirs, is under strict monitoring by the country’s security service. His stories are related to his time in jail as a political prisoner and to other events connected to his life as an intellectual in Iran.

2. Sean O'Connor - American Folk Songbook - Saturday 23rd April, 8pm, tickets €15/€12

Sean O’Connor, folk singer, musician, poet and writer returns to Nenagh Arts Centre to perform his American Folk Songbook after a very enjoyable show here last June. The show features songs from Woodie Guthrie to Bob Dylan and covers a range of American folk genres from traditional, country, gospel and bluegrass.

3. All Ireland Poetry Day – Thursday 28th April 8pm, tickets €5

Dromineer Literary Festival, in association with the Nenagh Arts Centre, will celebrate the All Ireland Poetry Day, April 28, with readings by Tipperary poets Michael Coady, Paddy Moran and Seamus Hogan, and with recitations of their favourite poem by four women from Dromineer and Nenagh.