I was at the Royal Duke on Saturday with my wife Cory and our friends Christie and Ian to experience The Dewdney Players performance of Lafferty’s Wake.
I think it’s pretty cool how the Royal Duke and the Dewdney Players partnered on this to create something different. It was like a dinner theatre except that the entire pub was the stage. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Dr. Sands from the Dewdney Players told me that the Lafferty’s Wake production was their most successful show since Calendar Girls. That’s impressive considering the Lafferty’s Wake performers had their clothes on the whole time. It was incredible how well they did Irish accents. The entire performance was really well done. I still have the song “Whiskey in the Jar-o” stuck in my head.
The pass the potato game was the highlight of the night for me. When the music stopped the first time, the person left holding the potato had to say a poem for Lafferty. The music started again and the potato moved on. The music stopped when Cory was holding the potato. She tried to pass it to me but it was too late. She was stuck with it. She had to go up and dance an Irish jig for Lafferty. This was priceless because she very rarely dances. I’m trying to think of the last time we danced and it very well could have been at our wedding in 2004.
I wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Would she refuse? Run out the door? Or jig? Without too much convincing she went and danced a lively jig. We have tickets to the Luisa Marshall show at the Black Diamond Hotel next Saturday. Maybe we will dance if I bring a potato?
