A show is coming to Dublin on March 16 that explores the life experiences of a man who found himself selling Dublin as a tour guide, while not being able to afford his rent.
The one man show will explore the housing crisis and much more when it makes its debut in Tallaght this month. Jack Walsh has been an actor involved in film work, TV, theatre and radio for many years.
Although this has been his passion, he often found himself with not a lot of work for some periods of time and with the cost of living increasing he got a job as a tour guide around Dublin for in between jobs. This where the name 'Welcome to Ireland - Meltdown of an Irish tour guide' for his show came from.
Jack said: "The rent started to increase significantly and I could see the way things were going, so for the first time I had to add a string to my bow in terms of earnings, to balance up the often up and down nature of actors' lives, I trained as a tour guide.
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"I eventually realised that even that might not be enough. Add in landlords selling houses and vulture funds and you’ve got the idea. I realised that here I was, selling Ireland for a living, while Ireland didn’t seem to have a place for me anymore."
Jack explains that when he was in this difficult situation it gave him the inspiration he needed to write this show. He said: "I thought there was a show in that. So I wrote a one person show with all these mad characters in it. Landlords, tourists, bus drivers, Saints, heroes of the past and many more. It’s a whirlwind story of tourism meets the housing crisis."
He tells of how the show was actually in the making before the Covid-19 pandemic. He explains: "We did a performance reading in the Axis in Ballymun pre-Covid, which went down really well. And it was supposed to be produced soon after but the Lockdown put the Kibosh on that. But the script is better now so every cloud, as they say."
Speaking about the housing crisis, Jack said that he thinks every member of the Dail should see the play as maybe they need to realise how if it can affect one person, it is also affecting many nationwide. Jack said: "It’s a story based on a real situation in my own life, and there are so many people who have stories like mine.
Every member of the Dail should see it because many of them are fond of hiding behind statistics, but the housing crisis is about real people. Maybe they need to see how it affects one person to realise how it affects so many"
The one man show will be on stage in the Civic theatre in Tallaght on March 16 before coming to the projects arts centre in Temple Bar from March 21 - 25 and the Axis Theatre in Ballymun on March 30 and 31. Tickets for the shows in Tallaght and Temple Bar will cost between €16 and €22, while the performances in Ballymun will be priced as 'pay as you can' where audience members can pay whatever they see fit and 100% of the profits will be donated to the Dublin Simon Community charity.
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