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DRESSED in a big green hat, matching purple two-piece, pink Louis bagette and red sandals, writer Mary Kenny's outfit at the launch of Listowel Writers' Week was part Anne of Green Gables, part Miss Marple on the Disco Express, part Mary Poppins goes Technicolor and part Bertie Bassett's Missus. I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, or a bee to the honeypot, or a magpie to the silver, or af (Oh, Christ. You get the idea. I don't have all day. ) Mary's play, Allegiance, a dramatised account of a one-off drunken encounter in 1921 between Winston Churchill and Michael Collins, has landed a slot at this year's Edinburgh Festival, starring Mel Smith and Laurence OlivierAwardwinner Brendan Coyle, the great nephew of soccer legend Sir Matt Busby of Manchester United.
?Churchill and Collins started off hating each other but, after that night, they sort of bonded, " Mary said, with an amusing tilt of her wide-brimmed hat. Speaking of allegiances, Pete Doherty fans were questioning theirs this week as headlines about the former Babyshambles alcopop idol spun out of control. Pete Doherty tamed by Irish smoking ban! Stop. Pete Doherty branded junkie filth! Stop.
Pete Doherty gonna rock around the dock! Stop. Doherty didn't check in with his probation officer, so he had to fly back home to London to the disappointment of fans at the Temple Bar Music Centre! Stop. (That was my headline. A little long, I know. ) But the fans can't have it both ways.
They either want a junkie alcopop idol or they don't. If they do, don't start whining over his no-shows.
He was a gentleman when he played at the Music Factory, " a music aficionado told me at the launch of Herbal Essences in the Morrison.
(Speaking of which, I'd love to give that mop of his a good shampoo. ) ?But Doherty was so out of his tree, I don't think he knew where he was."
Turns out, he was in Carlow, so it's probably just as well.
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YOU ARE HERE: 19 March 2007 / tribune.ie / 2006 / 04 / 23
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