It’s been a busy few months for Irish author Roddy Doyle. As his new novel The Guts hit bookshelves around the world, the musical based on his most famous work, The Commitments, prepares to take over the London stage
“I’m very excited about the musical,” Doyle tells Metro Éireann in early August. “It’s in its second week of rehearsal and already the band, The Commitments, are starting to sound like a real band.
“I wrote the novel in 1986, and only one of the performers in the musical had been born then. I find that fact both very amusing and satisfying,” he says. “The staging is very complicated and it’s fascinating to witness all this work being done – lighting, set building, music being played, costumes being designed, dance movements being learnt etc - all as a result of words I wrote on a page.”
His excitement about the new musical also left room for butterflies, as Doyle reflects on the differences between making a movie and a musical.
“[Making a musical] is more daunting, and for two reasons. Firstly, the film was made more than 20 years ago, so it’s a distant memory and a happy one, all anxiety and worry forgotten. Secondly, once a film is made, it’s finished, always exactly the same. This isn’t the case with live performance. It’s a different event every day, sometimes twice a day.”
Before jetting off to rehearsals, Doyle attended the launch of his latest book, The Guts, in an intimate, casual setting with friends. Half-way through the evening, he interrupted the hubbub to thank everyone for coming – including his father – and after only a few minutes of grateful words, he let the party resume its previous volume.
Afterwards, Doyle – who recently concluded another exclusive short story for Metro Éireann in ‘Celebrity Manager’, and collected many previous stories as The Deportees – considered the book launch a success.
“It was enjoyable. It served no marketing or commercial purpose; it was just a gathering of friends and family, so it was a nice way to celebrate the publication of a new book,” he says.
Set in the fictional north Dublin area of Barrytown – based on the real suburb of Kilbarrack, where Doyle was a schoolteacher for many years – The Guts focuses on Jimmy Rabbitte, Doyle’s famous protagonist from The Commit-ments, which was first published in 1987.
Although Jimmy’s first tale was told 25 years ago, Doyle says he doesn’t perceive this second book about his life as a continuation of that story.
“I don’t see The Guts as a sequel, but just a new book about the same central character,” he says. “The Commitments is about a band; the new book isn’t about the band forming again.
“I wrote The Commitments and invented the character, Jimmy Rabbitte, during a recession in the 1980s, and I thought it would be interesting to see how he was managing during this new recession.”
Despite his close familiarity with the character of Jimmy, catching the reader up on his life in The Guts was a completely different process than working on The Commitments, says Doyle.
“It was very different because, although the books both have the same central character, he’s a much older man in the new book. So the rhythm of his life, and his priorities, are different and demanded a lot of thought.
“I wanted the book to be about the same man, but the same man at a very different stage of his life.”
- Roddy Doyle will return to Metro Éireann with another exclusive short story later in the year.
