I think (if my sums are right) that was the Christmas of 1966, 43 years ago ,I would have been 17 years old and was in first year Arts in University College in Cork.
I was involved in “The Dramat” (which was what the cognescenti called the University Dramatic Society)and it was decided to put on a Revue.

The whole concept of a revue was very fashionable at the time. Beyond The Fringe was storming Broadway and Cambridge Footlights revue had even made it to Cork to play in the Group Theatre in South Main Street.

We were lucky with a few things. Tom Murphy , Ger Fitzgibbon and Emily Miles had done a revue previously and agreed to provide some scripts. The rest we more or less agreed to make up as we went on.
(Tom, who became a talented director in the Abbey Theatre has since passed on, Ger runs the Drama Department in UCC and Emily, now Emily Fitzgibbon, runs Graffiti Theatre in Cork)

The best thing was undoubtably a satire on UCC provided by Tom which was a pastiche of West Side Story
Unfortunately only a couple of lines stay with me.

Based on Officer Krupke an ode to the college Registrar had the lines

I’ve filled all my forms in triplicate
I’ve paid my fees in full
And to top that
I’ve got lots of pull

The title song which I think came from the Fitzgibbon pen went something like this

A students life is full of strife
Mummy wouldn’t like it
The rooms too full the lectures bull
Mummy wouldn’t like it
The policy at UCC
Leaves you and me so absolutely free
That we all shirk
And do no work
Mummy wouldn’t like it

I suppose that even being able to remember that much 43 years later is a little sad.

The programme, which amazingly I still have, was designed by Tadhgh Courtney our producers brother and had cartoons (and extremely unflattering ones) done by Peter Sanquest- Peter also played in a band at that time called Taste which also starred one Rory Gallagher.

This was the cover by Tadhgh.

John Fahey, who died about twenty years ago, was the funniest man I have ever met.
His speciality was versions of John Mc Cormack arias as they were played on Radio Eireann at that time before digital remastering.
He used to manage the thin high notes of the Count while providing the ubiquitous surface noise from the side of his mouth.
I give anything to hear him do it again.

Helen O Kelly was the pianist, as the Henry Hutchinson Stewart scholar of the year she went on to greater things and is now Doctor Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly the Fellow and Tutor in German at Exeter College, Oxford.

Sean was our director and our star and a natural comedian, his Dave the Rave monologue always brought the house down.
He moved to America and when I last heard of him was head of Education in a University in Nebraska

Maggie Loughnan was a great friend and we still keep sporadic contact.
She is now a Granny and teaches the deaf in London.

Isabel Healy, now Isabel Healy-Kelly-Duggan is still one of my greatest friends, in fact we will be staying with her in Berlin next month.
Isabel was responsible for the title as, as each suggested title was suggested she said “Mummy wouldn’t like that” eventually we defaulted on that.

Myself (yes I used to be that thin.)

The revue, if my memory holds, was a great success and we had to run for several extra nights.
I cannot now remember who it was suggested that we should give a charity show for the inmates of Skiddy’s Almshouse.
Skiddy’s was an old folks home in the city.
It was of course a disasterous idea.
The jokes which had been recieved with hilarity by our student audience went down like lead balloons with the old folks.

Our confidence eventually finally left us when at the end of a particularly energetic sketch, which was greeted in complete silence, a plaintive voice from the back said ” I want to go back to SKiddy’s”

Our friend Donal O Sullivan , an ex boy soprano with the voice of an angel, stepped in.
He went on stage and sang the Ave Maria by Gounod.
This was a great success.
We abandoned the rest of the show and once Donal had run out of Hymns gathered around Helen on the piano and sang carols.
The day was saved.