Dublin Fringe Festival 2019: Q&A with Martha Knight

Martha Knight is the one of the creators of 'Ode to a Postcode', running in the Dublin Fringe Festival 2019 from September 20th to 22nd

Returning for its 25th year, Dublin Fringe Festival is taking place in the capital until September 22nd, and promises something for everyone across the worlds of theatre, art, performance, music, comedy and more.

One of those somethings is 'Ode to a Postcode', taking place in The Civic Theatre, Tallaght, which invited people to write and post personal letters addressed to Tallaght and is now asking you to travel there accompanied by their radio play before stepping into their live installation.

We caught up with one of the creators of 'Ode to a Postcode', Martha Knight, to hear more about the show, Dublin Fringe Festival, and the big problems facing the city and the country in 2019.

Give us the 60-second elevator pitch for your show.

'Ode to a Postcode' is a live music installation response to hundreds of letters written by the public addressed to Tallaght. These letters were posted after a nationwide call for letters, both online and in physical postboxes placed all around Tallaght, from The Square to The Civic to Tallaght Hospital, to Maelruain’s Church. The piece is an interactive exhibition of the letters with pop-up musical performance from our company, and uses the letters as text for all of these performances.

Where did the idea for the show come from?

We have wanted to bring the Dublin Fringe Festival to Tallaght for years. The idea for this show came from a conversation about the experience of living in Tallaght and how it can’t be represented by a single story. Something that people really celebrate about Tallaght is how diverse and dynamic its community is, so how could we talk about Tallaght from one person’s perspective? We came up with the letters as a device then, as they will represent hundreds of different experiences of Tallaght.

On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you to perform it?

10!!! It’s an extremely fun piece to be involved in and we want our audience to feel uplifted during and after it. We all get to play great characters and each short scene is completely different, so it will be very interesting to perform.

Why Dublin Fringe Festival?

The Dublin Fringe is such an exciting time every year, and we wanted to spread some of that excitement all the way down the red line and out to Tallaght. Tallaght is a massive part of Dublin with its own buzzing arts scene, so we thought it was the perfect time for this formal introduction between Tallaght and the Fringe!

Who should come see your show?

People who have lived in Tallaght all their lives, people who have only been here a handful of times, and people who have never been here and want to discover it. People who used to take day trips to the Square from the country, people who basically grew up in Sean Walsh park, people who have had lifechanging experiences in Tallaght hospital, people who have only ever heard about Tallaght. In short, anyone with Tallaght in their hearts.

What’s the biggest challenge that Dublin/Ireland faces today?

I think there’s been a scary decrease in cultural spaces and areas for people to celebrate art. It’s really important that we cherish the spaces we have now and support organisations and companies working in the arts, so that artists can continue to find space for their work.