Liverpool performers in the ‘Company of Friends’

Company of Friends will perform a short play during the Happy Days Festival alongside huge international companies like the Berliner Ensemble and Out of Joint.

The company is really excited to be able to show off their performance skills and demonstrate what people with a learning disability are capable of.

During their stay they will be linking up with similar organisations to themselves in Fermanagh, namely the SHARE discovery village and the Killadeas Day Centre.

Their play Nothing To Be Done? is a seriously comic look at the experiences of people with learning disabilities in the style of the great Irish writer and local schoolboy Samuel Beckett. It tracks the fortunes of some vaguely recognisable characters from Beckett’s work as they try to make sense of a strange fog that doesn’t seem to go away.

Using slapstick, physical theatre, voice-over and live music Company of Friends have put together a show that is as uplifting as it is very funny.

Company of Friends is run by writer/ director Paul Goetzee and actress/drama tutor Helena Kane and more importantly the members themselves.

They are based in Liverpool and have been fundraising ‘like mad’ to go to the festival.

Last year they even managed to show excerpts of the show in New York at the prestigious Young Adults Institute conference.

“Company of Friends do everything with style, both on and off the stage,” saud Paul.

“They are thrilled to be bringing a show over to Northern Ireland. One of the members has a sister in Armagh and our fiddle player is no stranger to the jigs and reels of Irish music having toured here on numerous occasions. Personally I am a big fan of Beckett. I have friends in Ireland and I’ve toured here once or twice with theatre shows in the past. We’re looking forward to linking up with the SHARE village and the Killadeas Day centre to share ideas, a pot of tea and a spot of karaoke maybe!”