(Fionola Meredith’s article appeared in The Irish Times, 9/6.)
GOOD VIBRATIONS
Lyric Theatre, Belfast
★★★★
This stage version of Terri Hooley’s story makes the transition from film with style
When you hear the words “stage musical” you don’t tend to imagine a posse of young punks belting out a song so fiercely that the floorboards shake. But that’s what happens on Wednesday night at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, at the opening performance of Good Vibrations. It is a glorious moment.
Adapted from the award-winning film, Good Vibrations is the story of Terri Hooley, who, with a mixture of reckless abandon and unquenchable hope, opened a record shop on “the most bombed half-mile in Europe”, Great Victoria Street in Belfast, in the 1970s. There he discovered the underground punk scene and its joyous, anarchic ability to transcend tribal boundaries and bring people together, even as the city burned. Hooley became an unlikely impresario, putting on gigs and producing records in defiance of the bombers, the police and the snooty attitude of the mainstream music industry in London.
Photo: Irish Times
