Winter wonderland is casting a warm Glow across Cork City for Christmas

The winter wonderland in Bishop Lucey Park is brightening up the city, says Ellie O’Byrne

CURIOUS onlookers gazed through the locked gates of Bishop Lucey Park, as Mike Leahy, the artistic director of Spraoi, a Waterford street-theatre company, and his team were constructing Glow, their Victorian-themed winter wonderland.

When we visited, the launch was just 24 hours away. Workers in cherry-pickers were decking the trees in colourful lights and a team was assembling the walk-through street spectacle, which is inspired by ‘The Night before Christmas’, the 1823 poem by Clement Clarke Moore.

Spraoi are no strangers to Cork: they produced ‘Awakenings’, the opening ceremony for Cork 2005 European Capital of Culture. They are regular contributors to the St Patrick’s Day festivals in Dublin and Waterford and have also had productions at the Bram Stoker Festival and Waterford’s Tall Ships Race (in 2005 and 2011).

“People will come up this way here, and will be led on a journey inspired by the individual lines of the poem,” Mike said, gesturing to a platform where a crew of four was busy assembling one of the set-pieces. “There’s a line in the poem — sugarplums danced in their heads — but a sugarplum isn’t a very interesting thing! We took a little bit of licence with that one and, as you can see, we’re stringing up sweets and candy canes, just to get that idea of the celebration and excitement of Christmas.”

As well as a construction team of eight, 12 actors are being employed to add the theatrical spark that has established Spraoi’s reputation.

Mike pointed out cabins where the actors, in period costumes, can interact with the visitors and with each other.

Other characters roam freely and mingle with the onlookers. Because Spraoi’s theatre director, Nick Kavanagh often works in Cork, they sourced half of their actors from the city.

Interactive light boxes with moveable parts allow children to turn a handle and make snowflakes fall on snowmen or Santa’s sleigh to swoop over rooftops.

Spraoi also designed one of their “scenery boxes” — set-pieces for family photo opportunities — with disability access in mind. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t do that for all of them, due to space restrictions,” Mike said. “But this one has a ramp on it. We want everyone to feel included.”

“There’s a lot to do, all the PAs and lights to put in,” Mike said, as he looked around the day before the launch.

But an even larger concern was looming: the weather. “As I said to the lads, last year they lost a railway station in Cork. Unless you literally built everything out of concrete, there’s not really much you can do, apart from hope that the weather holds off. We’ve loads of sandbags, loads of stakes, loads of ratchet straps — apart from that, you just keep your fingers crossed.”

Last year, despite the storms that closed Dowtcha Puppets’ ‘Tír na Nollag’ Celtic Faerie village for one night and that halted the ferris wheel on Grand Parade, due to the high winds, 60,000 people visited the park over four weekends.

More than 15,000 people turned out for Spraoi’s opening weekend in just 12 hours, between Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so this year’s Glow festival is set to easily be as busy as last year’s.

Weather concerns and workload aside, Mike loves seeing visitors having fun and getting into the Christmas spirit. “The actors can really run riot with it because of the era we’ve set it in — we’ve town-criers, Victorian street-sellers, just really good fun, interactive characters. I’ve been at the rehearsals and they’re very good, really funny,” Mike said.