Naas women talk about their life-long friendship and creative partnership

A combination of talent, ambition and a mutual desire to produce female-driven theatre inspired the formation of Helen and Carol’s own theatre company ‘A Likely Story Productions’ in 2016.

Helen and Carol were pals in secondary school in Naas, Co. Kildare but both had already crossed paths at various drama competitions throughout the country. In fact, they were each other’s main competition – with an even divide of accolades between them.

Eventually paired together to compete in a national duologue competition, the two quickly realised the advantages of working together, and their complementary strengths led to them becoming best friends and an unbeatable duo.

What began as a shared passion for performance soon progressed into the realm of writing, which they subsequently pursued in their third level studies. They spent their college years co-writing, co-imagining and co-dreaming of a career in the industry. However, reality bites. And like so many before them, they found themselves adopting ‘sensible’ careers.

Carol started a speech and drama school and Helen became a primary school teacher to pay the bills while they pursued their artistic ventures. Book proposals, comedy sketches and TV proposals (one of which was in early development with RTÉ prior to the recession) were among their many creative exploits before they returned to the obvious – writing for the stage.

After successfully producing, directing and starring in several wellknown plays, in 2017 Carol and Helen decided to embark on their greatest challenge yet – to write and produce an original play with music. Out came the Irish history books and the search to find an engaging theme began. Amidst a litany of poverty and oppression, the vibrancy of 1960s Showband Ireland caught the girl’s attention.

Eventually, they became the writers and producers of Are Ya Dancin? A Showband Story, which made its national debut at 3Olympia Theatre this summer. Helen says, “It took a storm – Storm Ophelia to be precise – and the ensuing power cut for us to finally sit down and develop the concept of the play in the form of a short story. It took another storm – Storm Emma - for us to finalise the script!”

The play, which follows lead character ommy O’Neill, boasts a cast of thirty people – including Carol and Helen in the lead female roles of Mary McDaid and Sarah Harte respectively.

The story boasts a host of memorable and hilarious characters and charts the rising success of a newly-formed showband, capturing all the joy and fervour of this remarkable time. But it also touches on the deeper societal struggles of sixties Ireland.

A show this size is a real rarity on a professional stage these days and included a live seven-piece band, twelve actors and fourteen dancers.

Although Helen and Carol faced many obstacles to bring their vision to the stage- everything came to an abrupt halt during Covid - they persevered and the successful show has now been seen by more than 5,000 people.

Carol says, “It was a hard grind but the team of people around us and the magical response we continued to receive from one sell-out audience to the next made it all worth the while.”

A fitting culmination of many years of collaboration – and the future is very bright!