Stage/Film

STAGE:

Unusually when we talk about Gerry’s involvement with the stage…it’s not out front you will find him. It’s very much backstage where his talents are put to good use. Sound, Light and Stage management to be exact. A chance meeting with Dublin Actor, Vincent Smith, in early 2011 who was directing Liz Tutty’s gritty play “Ginny Joe’s” gave him his first real big challenge. Gerry tells us what happened. “I was in Grogan’s Bar in Dublin, after a tour and I heard this man talking. I recognized the voice first and asked the barman was it Vincent Smith and I was right. Vincent had long been a hero of mine, his “Harry Redmond” role in the Lee Dunne play “Goodbye to the Hill” was a classic. Milo O’Shea played him in the film version but Vincent’s protrayal on stage was the definitive Harry Redmond for me.

When Vincent gave me the outline of the play and how is was going to be staged, it got me interested. The content was harrowing as it was about 3 different women abducted and presumed murdered. Missing and never found. Vincent himself was playing the role of the distraught and broken-hearted father. He was terrific. I cried every night at different spots, the entire cast were gifted  I brought my two sons Russell and Sean in on sound and result was really powerful. We ran for a week in the Lower Deck in July 2011, then a full week in the Maureen O’Hara studio at the Mill Theatre in Dundrum Town Centre in October 2012 . I am really expecting big things of this play in the coming years, I am hearing a run in New York”

Gerry teams up once again with Vincent Smith in March 2014 with a one man show  ”Hold your hour and have another” with Vincent playing Brendan Behan. Russell, Gerry’s son gave him a hand, making a DVD on the whole event. Great turn out with the Behan family in attendance.

Niall Toibin in attendance in Grogans to see Vincent in Behan one man show. Gerry on sound and light..

” A toast to Brendan” The Behan special makes the 6 o’clock news on RTE

Russell, getting video-camera set up

FILM:

Gerry’s main involvement with Film in the past few years has been extra work on films such as “PS I love You”, “Leap Year” and later “Quirke” in 2013. “Quirke was great” Gerry explains “Filmed in Dublin of the 1950′s, BBC Drama, great production values managed a few decent on screen moments even managed a chat with the man himself, Gabriel Byrne between takes. We chatted about, who else, Vincent Smith who he knew well from the old days.”

In 2011 whlle beginning his involvement with Vincent in Ginny Joe’s, Gerry directed Vincent in short film shot around a narrative called “Brewed in Dublin” written by Vincent for Radio way back in the 1990′s. “This was the business, hear I was, directing and filming the man himself , all around St Patrick’s Park, we got a call after we had finished and before I knew it I was up in the Westbury Hotel, with Pauline Collins making us both coffee in her room. Seems herself and Vincent go way back. I did tell her I had a crush on her when she was Sarah in Upstairs, Downstairs, she was lovely and really interested in what myself and Vincent were up to.