They worked together on The Snapper, The Van, and The Commitments. Another film would be fantastic.
With the Christmas season fast approaching, you know that the Barrytown Trilogy is going to be on TV. Similarly, you know that you’re going to watch them all over again.
Despite the fact that film fans have seen the films countless times before, can quote every line of dialogue, and know exactly what’s going to happen, the trials and tribulations of the Curley/Rabbitte family are an Irish cultural institution.
Spanish sailors, Dublin soul, Suzukis, Sharon, the shootout vs Romania, Mustang Sally, “Hey Burgess! Burgess! Snip, snip,” and hundreds of other iconic moments and lines are why The Snapper, The Van, and The Commitments continue to find new audiences.
Of course, the three films are all adaptations of Roddy Doyle’s superb work which chronicled working-class Dublin, but the author did return to Barrytown with another novel, The Guts.
In terms of the novel’s plot, The Guts is described as follows: “Jimmy Rabbitte Jr. is back with some old friends, but time has moved on for all of them. The man who created the soul band, The Commitments, is now forty-seven, with a loving wife, four children, and bowel cancer. He is not dying, he thinks, but he might be.”
The novel starts with Jimmy Jr. trying to break the news that he has cancer to his dad (Jimmy – played by Colm Meaney in the films), his wife Aoife and his children (Mahalia, Brian, Marvin and, of course, Jimmy).
With a new film released in Irish cinemas this week, The Last Right, JOE was lucky enough to chat with Colm Meaney about his superb career. Naturally, we had to ask him about a potential return to Barrytown and the star of Con Air and The Damned United was extremely open to the idea.
“Anything Roddy does I’d always be interested in. Roddy’s a genius. I’m not aware of that book (The Guts) in particular, but Roddy and I talked briefly at one point about adapting the ‘Two Pints’ the two boys in the bar talking,” he said..
In a very interesting turn of events, since JOE met with Meaney, it was announced that Roddy Doyle’s smash-hit show is now coming to the Olympia Theatre after hugely popular runs in pubs all across Ireland, on tour in the US and UK, and on the Abbey Stage.
While it’s highly unlikely that Meaney will be performing in that adaptation, it’s clear that Meaney still adores Doyle’s writing.
“He wrote a thing when the Barrytown Trilogy won at the Dublin Book Of The Year. We did a thing at Vicar Street. It was a great night and Roddy wrote a little two-page thing for the two of us to do on the night, an adaptation of ‘Two Pints.’ They’re just two great characters!
“I remember at one point, my character tends to fancy older women and he was going on about how he really fancied Christine Lagarde – the head of the IMF – it was completely out of the blue but it also gives you an idea of these guys. Like, he knew who she was and her role as the head of the IMF, so he obviously reads a little bit about the economic state of the world. He’s a man of knowledge,” he said.
As for Meaney’s next film, The Last Right is released in Irish cinemas on 6 December.
Take a look at what’s in store.
Clip via Entertainment One UK
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