A Question of Taste: Pauline O'Driscoll
Pauline O’Driscoll is from Bandon, Co Cork, and will be performing in The Seven Ages of Mam by Mark Evans at Cork Arts Theatre from July 11–14, as part of the venue’s Lunchtime/Supper Theatre Season.
Self-Management for Actors by Bonnie Gillespie.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Martin McDonagh has always held a special place in my heart, as it was through one of his plays that I met my husband Seán.
Asking For It, the stage adaptation of Louise O’Neill’s novel.
I had occasion to learn ‘I am Stretched on your Grave’ for an audition recently around the time of the first anniversary of my brother PJ’s sudden death last year and I can’t get it out of my mind since.
I was completely besotted with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers when I was growing up.
I was blown away by Angels in America when I first saw both parts of it on Broadway back in 1993.
When I have custody of the remote control I tuck into shows such as The Crown, Happy Valley, or any period drama. TV shows that my hubby and I enjoy watching together include The Walking Dead, The Killing, Orphan Black, and The Handmaid’s Tale.
On the odd occasion I’m in the car alone, without my kids, I tune into Newstalk, especially The Last Word with my ex UCC classmate Matt Cooper. If the girls are with me it’s Red FM all the way.
Pretty much everything that Nicola Walker, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Allison Janney, and Laurie Metcalf have ever done.
Graham McTavish, whose roles include Dwalin in The Hobbit movies and Dougal McKenzie in Outlander is an ex-boyfriend from way back when we were both doing rep at Chichester Festival Theatre... does that count?
My paternal great-grandfather, Edward O’Driscoll used to buy and sell pit ponies to work in the coal mines in Wales, jumping into the water when they reached Wales to swim the ponies ashore.
His widow Maria raised their five surviving children of whom, P.J, my grandfather went on to found P.J O’Driscoll & Sons Solicitors in 1899. Now nearly 120 years later, that firm is still trading.
My maternal grandfather Dan Holland was one of Tom Barry’s Flying Column in the old IRA and spent years on the run. My maternal grandmother Lillian Holland was a woman well before her time, a true feminist and wonderful role model.
She refused to be “churched”, a ceremony that used to be performed on women after they had given birth, in order to cleanse them before they could return to church.
Her stance caused quite a problem for the parish priest who ended up having to throw a bit of a blessing at her from across the room.
My own mum, like her mother before her, has always been an advocate for equality and women’s rights... There was no such things as boys’ jobs or girls’ jobs in our house, hence both my brothers were/are dab hands on the sewing machine.
Mothers. OK maybe I’ve Mams on the brain at the moment because of my play but when I became a mother myself I discovered a whole new level of appreciation, respect, and gratitude for my own mother and all the mothers that went before me.
I’d say I’d need to be a universal/divine power a month to even get started on my wish list of stuff to sort out: Children in cages on the US/Mexico border, the war in Syria, the Gaza Strip, homelessness, plastic pollution, global warming, rampant consumerism, etc.
But leaving all that aside it perplexes me that we have created a society where working for five days and resting for only two is the norm... what were we thinking?
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