A night at the theatre

As regular readers will be aware I have a close association with the Sweet For Addicts theatre company in Glasgow.

Consequently, I was delighted when they reached out a couple of days ago and asked me to publicise their upcoming production.

Director Mark Williamson sent me this:

The Story of Addicted The Musical

Addicted the Musical actually grew out of the songs of Michael Keenan. Having noticed the plethora of “Jukebox Musicals” that were coming out, he wondered if his own songs would lend themselves to the telling of a story and he set about sifting through the material to see if any coherent themes arose. Sure enough, alcoholism, drug addiction and recovery seemed to present themselves for consideration.   

Over a number of months, scenarios began to emerge around the songs Addicted, Applejack Wine and No Regrets. The idea was to present a drama that contrasted the journeys of two people who were in trouble with drink and drugs. There was the one who surrendered the attempt to control and committed to recovery and the other who thought that control was still possible.

In 2013, Michael, who had lived in Galway and Mayo for over 20 years, returned to Scotland to look after his parents. He enlisted the services of Jim McCormick, a retired lecturer in English literature, to co-write the dialogue, and they finished the play in 2015. They then went looking for someone to perform the drama, sending it off to a few theatre companies, without success.

In 2019, Michael attended Sweet For Addicts’ production of Rebellion, a play written by Phil Mac Giolla Bháin, and afterwards sent the script of Addicted to Mark Williamson on the off-chance that Sweet For Addicts might be interested. Mark got back in touch and they arranged to meet. During Rebellion, it had emerged that a number of the cast were singers and a few had asked if there was any chance they might do a musical someday. Though not, strictly speaking, a musical, Addicted does have a number of songs embedded within the drama.

The play was staged for the first time in September 2019 and played for two nights to a sold-out theatre and standing ovations. On the 7th April, it returns to The Webster Theatre for a run of three nights.

Tickets are available from www.sweetforaddicts.co.uk.