View from the Green Room: Daft 'Déise Dogs' knock off Reginald’s Tower
Theatre Vamps' Déise Dogs at the Coastguard Station, Tramore.
Theatre Vamps are at it again with another brand new play from the quill of Derek Flynn that owes its origin buried somewhere deep inside “Reservoir Dogs”.
It’s a simple enough plotline. Three old Waterford Crystal pals plan to stage a robbery to fund expensive medical treatment in the USA for one of their wives. The luckless pals enlist the assistance of a former blower who’s got a cunning plan to come up with the dosh. They’ll rob it. What could be simpler?
Wellll… a lot really. The hapless trio of thick-as-a-plank Kieran (Gary Deasy), exasperated-know-all Dean ((Jamie Power), desperate husband Kieran (Kieran Walsh) along with overwhelming-Elvis-impersonator-and-chief-schemer Pa (Derek Flynn) couldn’t swipe a hat from a blind man in a coma.
BUT… Pa’s got the perfect heist…“ We’ll knock off Reginald’s Tower… and nick everything… Viking swords, ancient parchments, jewels, crowns and the Huegenot recipe for blaas!”
On the scale of bad ideas that runs from zero to invading Russia in the winter, this was 228.
The plan is a sinch, really. Apparently, medieval pirates dug tunnels everywhere, including a tunnel under the river from Ferrybank to Reginald’s Tower.
“So”… declares Pa with a chest exploding with pride “we’ll crawl across the tunnel, come up through the trapdoor in the Tower, grab everything and Bob’s your uncle”.
Sadly, it’s more a case of Robert’s yer aunty for Pinhead Pa’s daft dodge.
Expert Pa’s thought of evvvrything. Code names for the gang – Barronstrand, Ballybeg, Hillview. And he’s a delegator who’s off on a massive power-trip. Thicko Kieran will get the guns… "wha’ Pa...GUNS?”... and Dean will look after the disguises.
Of course, Kieran manages to buy just one toy popgun with vivid orange handles, while Dean’s journey to Penney’s to buy tights as head masks becomes a journey into his inner self as he finds he’s terrified of being seen in Penney’s knicker and tights section.
Everything goes according to plan. Wellll… sort of. The fab four’s journey on all fours into the Tower is a hoot and treasure is at hand – a toy sword and a plastic crown – but the tide has risen and the tunnel is blocked off. The boys are penned in. To make matters worse, the armed unit of the trigger-happy Gardaí have arrived – with real guns – and crowds have gathered. Pa – whose ego is the size of Massachusetts – has run out of ideas.
The full house at the Coastguard never stops laughing. It’s a romp for the quartet of actors who clearly enjoy the fun as much as the audience. “Déise Dogs” has all the elements of farce. Things go wrong in quite complicated but nevertheless believable ways. Catastrophe lands on catastrophe and, somehow, leads to a third.
Zany characters and a victim, a storyline from rent-a-plot that wouldn’t pass muster at a Montessori school, more in-and-outs than you’d find with an over-wound cuckoo clock, along with an ending that seems impossible to resolve.
Nevertheless, the underdogs emerge as heroes (don’t ask… just go and see it!).
Derek Flynn writes, acts and directs and the four actors play the daft plotline for all its worth. The play is now on tour around the South East.
Well worth the ticket.
