The Works of James Joyce

‘SONGS OF JOYCE’

‘Songs of Joyce’ is a musical journey through the popular songs taken from the life and celebrated works of one of the world’s greatest writers, James Joyce, from Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. This live music theatre performance evokes Joyce’s Edwardian Dublin through the innovative collaboration of music, theatre, design, and choreography. Using piano, harmonium, percussion, soundscapes and close vocal harmonies, Sinead Murphy and Darina Gallagher provide a key to understanding Joyce through an accessible and intimate collection of the most loved songs and popular musical genres of the early 20th Century. Music informs, shapes and drives the narrative of the works of James Joyce and there are thousands of musical allusions contained within them. ‘Songs of Joyce’ mines these to create a performance that combines popular parlour song, comic music hall, folk song, bawdy street ballad and sea shanties.

‘Songs of Joyce’ was written and developed by Sinead Murphy and Darina Gallagher with choreography by Raymond Keane (Barabas), costumes by Ulyana O’Neill and originally developed in association with Bewley’s Café Theatre, Dublin, Ireland as part of the Dublin Bloomsday Festival 2010.

Reviews of ‘Songs of Joyce’:

“A Joycean feast of music hall memories” “delightful” “                 ”

Anne Madden, The Belfast Telegraph

“comic joy – with a real sense of joie de vivre.”

Alan Chadwick, Scottish Herald

“a rare insight into the contemporary popular music that haunted James Joyce's imagination while he was writing Ulysses, Finnegan's Wake, and A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. Although Joyce was clearly more equal than some other artists, as a towering genius of the early 20th century, it's good to be reminded of how, for him, the popular culture of the streets and music halls - saucy, sentimental, often downright rude - merged with the Irish song tradition and the great music of Homer's poem to create one of the mighty literary artworks of the age.”

Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman

“a very pleasant saunter into the world of Edwardian music hall”
                                                            London Mail on Sunday

"the best one-hour show I've seen in a long time, and I've never seen those music-hall songs and opera arias put over with such spirit, passion, and manifest knowledge of the period and its performance’
                                                              Dr Adrian Paterson, NUI Galway

(c) The Shannon Colleens