She even carries three changes of gloves/gauntlets!
We were off to Ireland, where we'd been invited to perform the Cakes in Space show at one of our favourite book festivals, Mountains to Sea in Dun Laoghaire. It was in full swing when we arrived last Thursday, with lots of great children's authors already doing their stuff. Here we are being Serious Writers with Shane Hegarty, Derek Landy and Holly Smale (Photo by David O'Callaghan from Irish booksellers Easons.)
It was also a chance to catch up with Mark Wright of Mossy Hare Productions and his partner Kathleen, who drove up from Wicklow to meet us on Thursday night. Mossy Hare were behind the Excalibur documentary which I did my best to help fund and publicise a few years back. It's finished now, but finishing a film is the easy bit - getting it shown/distributed is a whole other story. Mark's still in talks with TV companies about Behind the Sword in the Stone, and working on some new projects too.
Our first event was on Friday morning. It's always nice when we get to do our thing in a proper theatre, and Dun Laoghaire has a great one, the Pavilion. It has proper dressing rooms with lightbulbs round the mirrors and everything...
This next picture makes it look as if we didn't get much of an audience, but this was just the sound check. As you can see, I've gone prematurely blue.
Fifteen minutes later the place was full of local schoolchildren, and I think the show was one of our best.
 |
| Photo by Ger Holland |
Sarah always shows the audience how to draw Pilbeam, the robot from our book, and I showed them how I'd draw a killer cake. Here's just one of the results. (If you want to try drawing Pilbeam, there are instructions here.)
Afterwards, we walked down the seafront to Sandycove, and the Martello tower in which James Joyce once lived. McIntyre stood on the top to give passing ships a view of her latest fascinator.
Then it was back to work. We were on a panel about writing for children with Young James Bond author Steve Cole and top Irish children's author Judi Curtin, with the Oxford Story Museum's Tom Donegan (left) to keep us in line.
Sarah was trying out her latest hat, which she'd made in her hotel room out of bits of another hat and a sprig of artificial flowers which she bought that afternoon at Meadows & Byrne on the seafront. We were a bit worried that it would blow away or get entangled in chandeliers...
...but all was well, and she looked splendid in her flowery antlers, like the Monarch of the Glen.
We saw Judi again on Saturday morning. She's a good friend of author Sarah Webb, who is also the organiser of the Mountains to Sea children's programme, and they did a great event together about their books and how they came to be writers.
Sarah Webb talked about how she had wanted to be a ballerina when she was a girl, but how she never got any very good roles. Here she is demonstrating the costume she had to wear when she played the part of a brush in Cinderella.
That afternoon we had another Cakes in Space show to perform, for the public rather than schools this time. Since Friday's show had gone so well were pretty relaxed about doing it again. In fact, we were TOO relaxed. As we waited in the wings for Sarah Webb to introduce us, I suddenly realised that I'd left the ALL IMPORTANT SPORK in the dressing room. The ALL IMPORTANT SPORK is the one prop we can't do without; it's introduced early in the proceedings, and then forms the pay-off to a sketch we do towards the end. So no sooner had we got on stage than I had to make my excuses and hurry off again, leaving my co-author to hold the fort. Still, at least I HAD a co-author to hold the fort - you can't do that when you're doing a solo event.
And it turned out that we had a Very Special Guest in the audience - Cakes in Space fan Oscar had come dressed as his favourite character, the Nameless Horror, a scary-looking space blob which turns out to be (SPOILERS!) quite sweet really. Here's Oscar showing off his tentacles, while his mum shows off his Pilbeam drawing.
The rest of the show went well, and afterwards we signed a load of books. Book sales at the festival were handled by Bob and Marta from the brilliant Gutter Bookshop in Dublin and Dalkey, which is one of the finalists for the Bookseller Industry Awards Independent Bookseller of the Year. Here's owner Bob Johnston, in tweedy mood.
Other authors were still arriving. David Almond was there, with his editor Anne McNeil, his agent Catherine Clarke and his very fine hat. (David's most recent book, A Song For Ella Grey, was one of the titles I had to read for the YA Book Prize, and it's superb; I'll try to post a brief review later this week.)
Frank Cottrell-Boyce arrived to talk about his new book Broccoli Boy, and Francesca Simon and Stephen Butler were also there; we didn't get a picture of them at dinner on Saturday night, but here they are on Sunday, doing a rowdy event where Francesca's Horrid Henry and Stephen's Dennis the Menace go head-to-head. Which of the schoolboy sociopaths would the audience declare the winner? (It was kind of a tie in the end!)
Just along the seafront from the Pavilion Theatre is Dun Laoghaire's brand new library, the dlrLexicon, an impressive modern structure which slots in among the older buildings like a book on as shelf. (It also has a lovely water-garden and EXCELLENT CAKE.)
That's where we ended up on Sunday morning, for an event about Sarah's picture book There's a Shark in the Bath. I didn't have anything to do with writing that one, but I did write the lyrics for the Shark in the Bath song (music by John Dougherty) because all books must have theme tunes, oh yes. So I helped out with a bit of reading and some interpretative dance, and enjoyed watching McIntyre keep a room full of three, four and five year olds completely enthralled for a whole hour. They drew some great sharks, too! (You can learn how to draw your own shark here.)
Also in the audience were writer Oisin McGann, his wife Maeve, and his Thoughtful Gorilla T-shirt. (Their children were there too, but I don't think we have a picture of them.)
Afterwards, we nipped downstairs and were able to catch the end of a talk by Chris Judge, creator of the Lonely Beast and illustrator of the very funny Danger is Everywhere.
 |
| Photo by Elaina Ryan (I think). |
Sarah had to head back to London that afternoon; my flight to Exeter wasn't till next morning, so I was able to enjoy another evening of M2C hospitality, and sit in on one of the adult book talks - a very funny and illuminating interview with drag queen & gay rights activist Rory O'Neill, which was the closing event of this year's festival. I'd had a wonderful few days in Dun Laoghaire, and I hope I'll be back with McIntyre in future years. Huge thanks to the organisers, the volunteers, and the unflappable technical crew at the Pavilion Theatre.
0 comments:
Post a Comment