Emer Dineen on warm memories of her father, and bringing 0800 Cupid to Cork
Emer Dineen brings 0800 Cupid to her hometown of Cork for the first time as part of the city's Midsummer Festival.
For Emer Dineen, bringing her critically-acclaimed show to Cork will be an experience freighted with meaning and emotion. The production from Dublin theatre company ThisIsPopBaby, an exhilarating blend of live music and theatre which charts a tumultuous year in Dineen’s life in London, received a rapturous reception at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2024.
One of the themes of the show is the unseen care that young people provide for their parents, a subject with which Dineen is painfully familiar — her father Peter had dementia and passed away in April. The show, which comes to the Everyman Theatre as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival, is described as a love letter to her dad and is dedicated to his memory.
It will be a full-circle moment in many ways. Storytelling and the stage are in Dineen’s blood — Peter was an artist, raised in Blackpool in Cork city before moving to London. There he forged a career as an actor, studying drama in the evenings and later going on to perform at the National Theatre and in television shows including and
Her mother Kate Corkery, a professional storyteller, is originally from Passage West; she wrote the book and also performed at the Everyman in her youth. Dineen is also a great-grandniece of Daniel Corkery, the Cork academic, politician and author of seminal book
Her father’s career in the arts was hard-won, says Dineen, who has been inspired by his resilience in her own brave choices as an artist and performer.
“You have to take so many risks as an artist, and Dad took so many risks without a lot of financial security or backing. He was the eldest of nine and he left school at 13 to support his younger siblings, so he became like a father figure from a young age.
"In his passing, I've realised how many people saw him as that, and that's been really beautiful, because you feel less alone in the grief of it. I feel lucky to have been raised by artists, and I feel it's my responsibility to continue to be brave in doing that.”
Peter performed on the Everyman stage as well as producing shows there, and his daughter has many happy memories of those times.
“He wrote a play called which was based on the life of Frank O'Connor. It was around 2004, I remember, because I was a child and there were loads of kids in the show, so it was really exciting. And it had the Butter Exchange Band in it. I just remember it being so full, lively, and exciting and that's what dad was. He was full-hearted — whenever he'd pour you a drink or a pint, it would overflow.”
It was especially poignant for Dineen that her dad also got to see being performed in 2024.
"It was emotional. He was as ever, relentlessly positive. I think that must have been the last thing he saw.”
She describes the show as “a constellation of very surreal events that happened to me in quite a short space of time”. It also addresses the discombobulating times in which we live and the sometimes profound truth that can come out of chaos.
“It’s about that kind of post-pandemic confusion, being saturated with information, misinformation, having almost an entire lifetime online — all of that in tandem with my chaotic 20s, meeting my dad's condition and caring for my dad at the same time.”
While the subject matter is often serious, the show is also a joyous experience, informed by Dineen’s background as a cabaret drag performer and propelled by live music co-written by Dineen with Tom Beech and produced by Irish EDM artist, Elaine Mai.
"As much as it's a very sincere and truthful story, it's also camp and high-octane. It’s kind of a mixture of a rave, musical and concert and it's a ride, for sure,” she says.
Dineen is no stranger to Cork, having spent a great deal of time there growing up. "My whole childhood was Fota and Trabolgan, going back and forth on the ferry from Passage to Cobh and trips down to the Glen.”
She says she feels very lucky to be able to perform on the same stage as her parents. “It's a homecoming, the Dineens and the Corkerys will show up in abundance, I'm sure. As much as it is poignant and it is very raw, it's a surreal privilege to get to tell my dad's story, and bring this creation back to Cork.”
0800 Cupid is at the Everyman Theatretarget="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> as part of Cork Midsummer Festival,target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> June 18-19; it is also at the Project in Dublin, June 3-13; and Town Hall Theatre, Galway, June 23; Glor, Ennis, June 26; Hawks Well, Sligo, June 30; Siamsa Tire, Tralee, July 3-4. See ThisIsPopBaby
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