Cork Midsummer Festival 2025: Theatre for One: Made in Cork

Áine Ní Laoghaire in It's Not You by Cónal Creedon, Theatre for One:Made In Cork. Image Jed Niezgoda

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An often neglected festival joy is the familiar things. Like Landmark Productions and Octopus Theatricals Theatre for One, this year titled Made In Cork. Serving up six theatrical nuggets for the third consecutive year at Cork Midsummer Festival. Cork natives Cónal Creedon, Katie Holly, John McCarthy, Michael John McCarthy, Gina Moxley and Louise O’Neill each crafting short, one handers to surprise and delight. Performers Áine Ní Laoghaire, Tommy Harris, Simone Collins, Marion O'Dwyer, Gina Moxley, and George Hanover giving them life under the direction of Eoghan Carrick and Julie Kelleher.

Those unfamiliar with the format are in for a treat. Set up in Emmet Place outside Cork Opera House, an enclosed booth admits one audience member for a five to ten minutes direct, theatrical encounter. The definition of theatre as one person performing to one other person in a space summing up the experience perfectly, but saying nothing about the intimacy, the visceral reality, the sense of immediacy.

The format is normally a monologue delivered directly to the audience member. Making them confidants, connected, even when they might wish they weren’t. Like Cónal Creedon's superb It's Not You, directed by Julie Kelleher. In which an excellent Áine Ní Laoghaire, clutching a coffee cup like she might strangle it, points her green nailed fingers and asks who do you think you are breaking up with her? Looping back on repeated phrases, the same words shaped and reshaped, intensity deepens each time. In less than a minute you've a pretty good idea why you broke up with her, and are very relieved you did. Until an unexpected flip and everything's changed. The power shifting away from you and back to Ní Laoghaire. Who dispenses some parting shots before the screen slides shut.

Tommy Harris in Ambition by Katie Holly, Theatre for One:Made In Cork. Image Jed Niezgoda

Or perhaps you’ll meet the worst magician ever, giving the worst job interview ever. Comedy proving a trickier affair in Katie Holly’s delightful Ambition, again directed by Kelleher, as you don’t want to laugh at the person talking to you. A charming Tommy Harris negotiating the tricky terrain as the charmless Dermot, stage name Abracadermot. Another character dealing with a breakup, and once again it's very clear why. He's hoping you'll give him a gig at the Christmas party, or better still make him a manager. He only became a magician to impress his girlfriend. Then there’s his rabbit and ferret. As you listen to his efforts to impress you, you realise getting the gig is the least of Dermot's problems. As the door slides shut on the gormless card sharp, you're already wondering what the next candidate will be like.

Or perhaps you might engage with one of the other four intriguing productions. Queueing, you never know which of the six pieces you’ll encounter. But whichever one, Theatre for One: Made in Cork is well worth the wait. Stepping inside the red booth a sheer delight for first timers, and a sort of homecoming for Midsummer veterans. And admission is still free. You’d be mad to miss it.

Theatre for One: Made in Cork, presented by Landmark Productions & Octopus Theatricals, in association with Cork Midsummer Festival and Cork Opera House, runs at Emmet Place, (front of Cork Opera House) as part of Cork Midsummer Festival 2025,  June 14,15, 17 - 22.

For more information visit Cork Midsummer Festival 2025.