Review: Bringing theatre to Kilkenny's great outdoors in Bench Tales

Barnstorm Theatre Company are renowned for creating outstanding theatre and at this year’s Kilkenny Arts Festival they showcased their latest work, Bench Tales which was a resounding success.

Bench Tales consists of three short plays set on three benches in separate areas of Kilkenny’s Castle Park. It is a novel and new way of making theatre and from the moment you arrive at the designated meeting point the anticipation starts to build.

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It is clear that the team in Barnstorm have been meticulous in their preparations to ensure that the audience has the optimum experience. Binoculars are handed out and the audiences tunes in via their phones (a whatsapp group has been set up prior to the show) and they are shown where the bench in question is.

The first short play There is Always Tomorrow takes place on the opposite side of the duck pond from where the audience have been placed. It is a poignant and powerful piece of writing by Joe Bergin and explores the love and loss experienced through caring for someone with dementia. It is delicate and tender and there are strong performances from the three actors, Andy Doyle, Peter Rothwell and Jenny Fennessy.

The audience is then guided to another part of the park to watch the second piece, The Last Trip to Tipp, directed by Kilkenny’s John Morton and performed by Rosey Hayes, Anna Ní Dhúill and Evanne Kilgallon. This coming of age play deals with the levels and depths of friendship and brings the audience back to the glory days of heading to the Trip to Tipp and Féile ‘94.

The third play - Pink Makes the Boys Wink was a joy to watch as the audience was brought on an emotional journey with stellar performances from Helen Roche, Geraldine Plunkett and Cathy White. This piece written by Gemma Creagh celebrates aging while making the audience question how we view the elderly members of our community and gently shows us how our elders can enrich us all by sharing their lived in experiences and innate wisdom.

Bench Tales, which was produced by Philip Hardy, is both innovative and evocative and hopefully going forward there will be more Bench Tales for audiences to experience and enjoy in new and varying locations.