‘Old Flames’ returns to the Hawk’s Well on Monday July 27 (at 7.30pm) during the Tread Softly festival. Old Flames features new work from writer Brian Leyden.
This event was commissioned for Bealtaine2015 by Sligo Arts Services and the Hawk’s Well Theatre, with funding from Sligo County Council, HSE West and the Arts Council of Ireland.
Old Flames blends stories and music in a fond look at romance and courtship, house-dances, dowries and matchmaking as recollected by an earlier generation.
This show will light up a few fond memories and maybe even rekindle a romantic fire or two. Brian will be joined on stage by musician Seamie O’Dowd.
Previous Bealtaine commissions by the Hawk’s Well Theatre and Sligo Arts Service have included the hugely successful ‘The Man in the Woman’s Shoes’ (2012), ‘The Poetry of Place’ by Steve Wickham (2013) and ‘Songs from Home’ with Colm O’Donnell (2014).
Brian Leyden has published the bestselling memoir The Home Place, the short story collection Departures and the novel Death and Plenty.
He won the RTÉ Radio 1 Francis MacManus Short Story Award in 1988 for ‘The Last Mining Village’. He has written extensively about his home area for RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany.
His radio documentary work includes No Meadows in Manhattan, Even the Walls Were Sweatin’, The Closing of the Gaiety Cinema in Carrick-on-Shannon and An Irish Station Mass. He received an Arts Council Literary Bursary in 2014. His most recent work is Sweet Old World: New and Selected Stories (2015).
This production is free but booking is recommended through the Hawk’s Well Box Office on 071-9161518.
