Irishness to Oirishness: The Flatley Dance
Possibly less kind than the Guardian’s words on Michael Flatley’s Celtic Tiger are today’s from another British institution, The Telegraph, reviewing last week’s show at London’s Wembley Arena:
a near-Nuremberg Rally quality of worship for the mad events taking place on stage. Yet the truth is that, as an evening of high comedy, Celtic Tiger cannot be recommended highly enough
But again we’re talking comedy without irony. That stops being funny when it becomes a culture.
It’s quite possible with this nonsense, that after being involved in the few minutes of Irishness that some claimed kick-started the confidence from whence the actual Celtic Tiger economy sprang, that single-handedly (and way out from his side) Flatley is returning his culture to the nonsense of Oirishness so much of the world trades in.
One can only wonder what his former Riverdance employers make of it, and if they’re about to do the same with their Grace O’Malley musical, Pirate Queen
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