Acclaimed ode to McCourt classic in Limerick

A critically-acclaimed musical take on 'Angela's Ashes' that remains faithful to the Frank McCourt classic returns to the Lime Tree Theatre in Limerick later this month.   

'Angela's Ashes: The Musical' broke the box office record at the Lime Tree when first staged there in 2017. Receiving rapturous acclaim everywhere it went, the show returns to the road this month with the Limerick venue hosting the opening 11 performances.

Composer Adam Howell finds it fitting that the musical should open in the city where the book was set. He wrote the music and lyrics to the show while Simon Hurt adapted the script for the stage.

This is a project that Adam has been working on for some time, having first staged it in the UK in 2012.  He met Pat Moylan, producer of this version, in 2013. He spoke of how the idea of transforming the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel into a musical was greeted with scepticism initially, and of how he embraced the challenge to successfully recreate it on stage.

“It's set in Limerick at a very difficult time but Frank McCourt's story has so much humour and warmth in it,” Adam said. “When people first heard about what we were doing with the story, it raised eyebrows! At first, people thought we were a bit crazy, but that's part of the appeal!

“People asked: 'How are they going to turn this into a musical?' I think we've surprised people with how well-balanced it is a piece. And I certainly feel that we've honoured Frank McCourt's writing.”

The music in the show is interspersed with dialogue. Much of the latter is not in the novel, though Adam said it fits in neatly with the telling of the story. In many ways, the biggest challenge for him was knowing when to introduce a song.

Adam stressed that everyone involved in the project wanted the musical to honour McCourt's emotional story of growing up with a drunken father and helpless mother in the 1940s before defiantly leaving Limerick for a new life in the United States. In bringing this production to life, Adam worked quite closely with the McCourt family, members of which he came to know  through Una Heaton, who runs the Frank McCourt Museum. The Derby man knows the story intimately and talks about the profound, “almost eyrie” feeling he got when visiting its setting in Limerick for the first time.

Adam said he is delighted to be bringing the show to the city where it belongs. “The Limerick people have been fantastic and supportive of it,” he commented. “I find that Limerick people are always very positive and upbeat.”

He took the opportunity to pay tribute to Louise Donlon, Director of the Lime Tree Theatre, and to Ellen McCourt, who encouraged her husband to write 'Angela's Ashes'.

Also on stage at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Cork Opera House and Grand Opera House in Belfast, 'Angela's Ashes: The Musical' has a London premiere billed in October.
It will run at the Lime Tree Theatre from Thursday, July 18th, to Saturday July 27th, at 8pm (no performance on Sunday, 21st). Matinee performances: Saturday 20th and 27th at 2pm. See www.limetreetheatre.ie for further information.