Dermott Petty is another Irish storyteller, said in the best possible way. He wants to tell us what it was like to grow up in very rural Ireland during the '60s and '70s of the last century when so much was changing and so quickly and just out of his grasp.
Set in the small village of Lisdoonvarna, North Clare, on the West Coast of Ireland (only the vaguest clue where this is). Population 600, with one street. And just coming about Elvis Presley for music. The Sex Pistols were a decade away.
Dermott Petty, in the late '70s, discovered this new music that was coming out of Detroit and New York. And London. It was call "punk rock". This was for him! Musicians were making a living selling tee-shirts and living on the street. So, he decided that he was going to make himself an expert, acquiring two records at the cost to his parents of a trip across the border, where goods were a great deal less expensive, for a new record player and £20 duty on two records.
Add to this peculiarity, Petty wanted to be chucked out of school. He plotted to fail his exams... by not taking them. And as an add incentive, he would top this off by doing a class presentation about of men through the ages who wore earrings, punctuating it with a clip-on earring to guarantee his expulsion. Sitting for exams, he asks what would be the earliest he would be allowed to leave. Not a pen to paper in the exam, as planned, he watched the minutes tick by and, at the twenty-minute mark, upped and left. He failed, of course, and was gleeful.
Dermott Petty is a few pounds heavier with dodgy knees. The picture must be one of his youth. But the punk rocker spirit is still banked down within him. When the music plays, he is compelled to dance.
It’s a charming, coming of age tale of a boy lured by the siren of the music of far away. He wore “different” with conviction and purpose. And it is still in him, even if it has a bit of trouble escaping. He has swapped a little of the punk rocker for the storyteller.
It's a raw first show backed up by an unabashed desire to share. Not quite a last hurrah.