View from the Green Room: Masterclass of comedy from the Goats

The opening is pure nostalgia. The Twentieth Century Fox Masthead is replaced by BG Productions and a journey around Tops and musical society productions from the eighties. 

Bombastic script and colourful voiceover from Waterford playwright Jim Nolan explains the Goats' journey from iconic Tops comedy stars to tonight’s comic review production. 

Affectionate sighs and gentle “aghhs” of affection came from an audience who were all too familiar with Waterford Tops. 

Footage of Denny and Des, Scol and Davy, the Corcoran brothers, Petey and Nicky and Dermot, Carrie and Gary, Tobie and myself flooded across the screen. ACEC’s Jesus Christ Superstar… Rayban’s Skid Row… the Glass’s Les Mis… Tramore’s vaudeville stroll sets out the stall: this amazing gene pool of comic genius could not be simply allowed to fade into the history of musical entertainment in Waterford.

Enter the Goats who strut around like they own the place. And don’t they just love black humour. All the dramatis personae are dead now and graveyard recriminations fly. And mostly nest in writer Tony Corcoran’s lap… "you wrote all this fockin’ stuff"…Juckey Collins’s roasts of Cha O’Neill, Mary Roche and other politicians, pulpit condemnations of too much flesh on display. It’s time to ask the Lord for a second chance to redress the balance… and it’s off we go on a rollercoaster comic ride to the strains and the dance of the excellent Jack Cunningham dancers in “Thriller”.

When the Holy Joes saunter in procession with the statue of the Blessed Virgin to St. Theresa of the Roses – accompanied by Cardinal Tobie and Pope Tony – the house cracks up. It’s the cue for multiple church collections and Latin ceremonies where the names of Italian soccer stars replace the liturgy. Jealous wife Brenda Corcoran’s stabbing of her husband Pádraig O’Gríofa in the People’s Park and its subsequent investigation by the worst CSI team – Davy, Tony, Juckey and Scol – in the world is a riot of misinterpretation. Like donkeys looking under the bonnet of a helicopter, they conclude that the victim, with a 12-inch dagger sticking out of him, was shot from a distance of two miles.

A Waterford Council scene, complete with Mayor and chain, and a country accent as thick as thistles that requires incompetent interpreter Hazel Tebay to translate, decides on the daftest of proposals. The councillors lay it on factor 50 thick. Coffee-and-latte Yuppies banned from streets… Dunnes made to end the confusion of selling food AND clothes… Greenway to Rosslare binned and its tarmac used to extend the runway in Waterford airport… reduction in the number of all of these daft museums… 

I mean what the fock is a Time Museum anyway?… and don’t get me started on that Death building that should be up in John Thompson’s… and that Spraoi crowd spillin’ drink all over the city… and as for Imagine where yer asked to imagine there’s a festival. Extending Winterval from August to Paddy’s Day is the answer.

Greta Rochford’s “As if we said goodbye” from Sunset Boulevard is exquisite in its silence, before segueing into the comic highlight of the night with Jane, Brenda, Greta and Hazel as insane hairdressers who party Covid away with their own brand of lockdown. 

Greta denies all her Covid symptoms – runny nose and throat, coughs and shares her massive temperature all over everyone. She’s observing all the restrictions, though. Family dinners down to 17 and she’s in before 9pm every evening although does concede that she’s out from 2pm. 

A Covid test with Chinese instructions leads to mayhem.

There’s a health sketch with four sharing a bed and an orchestral band practice for tone-deaf musicians that struggles with keeping time. Recent Green Room Award Winner for “Best Actor in a Musical” Conor Lyons appears on screen receiving his gong. Conor gives it socks as he hunts down the Goats for an audition. When it comes, Conor is brilliant. “Send in the Clown” is the perfect number to bring us back to all those greats that appeared in Tops and with the Goats.

Groucho Marx was dead right when he said “Comedy is no laughing matter”. Because it’s hard. Very hard. It needs to be intelligent, thoughtful, innovative and ironically truthful. It shines a light on the truth of our lives and, in laughing, we learn that we are not the only ones who suffer in this world. 

Sometimes visual, often dark, regularly daring and timing is everything. The Goats got it all right.

So… hats off to Michael Grant and his team for a wonderful night’s entertainment with “The Bilberry Goats… is that it?” I hope not.