Dialects in Performance


[accordion_name id=”a5″]Accent: American – General (click to reveal transcript)[/accordion_name]

[accordion_data id=”a5″]Most Highly Favoured by David Ireland

Character: Mike

I have a limited amount of time on earth.
Forty-seven hours to be exact.
I met you at seven o’clock last night and I have to be back in Heaven by six o’clock tomorrow night British time.
Heaven is very nice and being an angel is great but being a human being for forty-seven hours is as exciting as life gets for an angel.
I like having sex.  I like eating.  I like kissing.  I like getting drunk.  I like walking.  I like feeling real.  Having skin and teeth and hair and…
I love this!  This!
I even like going to the bathroom.  Really.  I know you probably find it disgusting but when you only get to do it once every thousand years it’s the most fascinating experience you could ever have.
But most of all I like breathing.  I like sitting on a park bench, inhaling and exhaling, watching squirrels and pigeons and dogs.  I like sunshine and rain and… weather?  Isn’t that what you call it?  I like weather.  We don’t have weather in Heaven.
None of the other angels like being down here anymore.  It’s not the same as it used to be.
You used to revere us.  You believed in us when we spoke.  And now you don’t.  You no longer accept us unquestioningly.  Which is a good thing.  It shows you’re evolving.
But it makes our job a lot harder.  It leads to… well it leads to situations like this.
When God gives us these tasks no one volunteers willingly anymore.
But I did.
Because I thought – well to be honest, I thought, stupidly I thought, I could cheat God.  I thought I could fulfil my mission, get you… you know… filled…and then not have to tell you.  I mean, you’ll find out some day eventually, when your baby son starts walking on water or resurrects his pet hamster, so why do I need to tell you?  I don’t have to be a divine messenger this time, do I?  The baby is the message.  That’s what I was thinking.
But the thing with having God as your employer is he’s always one step ahead of you.  A thousand steps ahead of you.  He knew I couldn’t get out of here without telling you.  That some part of you needed to hear it and wouldn’t let me go.
When we made love last night, it was special.  But it wasn’t me.  You were making love to God, Mary.  As much as I enjoy it I’m not very practiced at sex.  Without God’s assistance, I’m afraid to say it would have been fairly pedestrian.
I’m using my remaining time on earth to visit London.  I’ve never been to London before.  I’ve never been on a train before.
Last time I was on earth, I was helping Cyril and Methodius convert the Slavs.  And believe me, that was a lot easier than dealing with you.
So I’ve told you the truth.  I’ve delivered the Messiah into your womb and I’ve handed you your divine mission.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to pack and get ready.  I’m booked on the ten thirty to King’s Cross and I don’t want to miss it.  I have tickets for The Lion King.

This monologue is published by kind permission of the author. [/accordion_data]


[accordion_name id=”a4″]Accent: Dublin – D4 (click to reveal transcript)[/accordion_name]

[accordion_data id=”a4″]Laundry by Nicola McCartney

Character: Katie

Let me tell yeh about the walk home Eileen. Are yeh listenin?   There’s this fella, just started work at Byrne’s shop and I think he might have a fancy for me, cos he follows me home every night. I’ve been watching him…..He finishes a bit before us, so he waits down at the corner until we get let out. When I walk past him, he pretends he’s not seen us, looks the other way an all. So I lets on I haven’t seen him. And the next thing, I glances over me shoulder and he’s right behind – following me like. The one I’ve been tellin yeh about. The one that works for oul Bowsie Byrne. The tall skinny one with hair like a lavatory brush. As white as a sheet. This is a laugh Eileeen. Wait till I tell yeh what I did tonight. I waited until we were comin down the entry between Doyle’s and McCracken’s – until Theresa left me – I didn’t want to embarrass him that much. Then I turns on him and says. ‘Can yeh not find your own way home that yeh have to follow me every night?’ He nearly died, God help him! Couldn’t speak with the fright of it. Then I says, ‘Do yeh like me then?’. The poor creature nods his head like this. So I says, takin pity on him, ’If yeh like me that much I suppose I can meet yeh later on…..

This monologue is published by kind permission of the author. [/accordion_data]


[accordion_name id=”a3″]Accent: Glasgow (click to reveal transcript)[/accordion_name]

[accordion_data id=”a3″]Blooded by Isabel Wright

Character: Donna

The summer of T in the Park! An’ we get a tent and it’s muddy as fuck! An’ you wake up in the morning with inch thick mud on your face! An just when you think you’ve got through the day all clean some wee eejit comes and splashes your best white jeans or hugs you when he’s muddy, just to be funny. An’ the food’s all right, but its dead expensive man! Fuck me so it is! But when you’re right there in the middle of it! An’ there’s so many, many people and you’ve never seen that many people in your life all together! An’ the sun’s going down and its rainin’ like fuck down on you likes! But you don’t care cos it’s the best thing ever! An’ there’s a big man on your right who’s like a big fuckin wall! An there’s a big man on your left who’s like seven foot tall, and then there’s a big wave when everyone gets swept right along and you’re in the middle of it! And Amy canny stand up any more so you’re draggin’ her to her feet. And some wee gnaff’s tryin’ to snog you so you’re fightin’ him off likes! An’ you’ve lost your sister long ago cos she had to stand up the back by the kebab van cos of the baby. But you can still see! And everyone’s jumpin’, jumpin’, and you’re jumpin’, jumpin’, and everyone carries you with them, and there’s some big guy puts you on his shoulders and you’re high above everyone reachin’ for the skies! An’ you’re wavin’ at the camera an’ you might get on the telly! An’ it’s the best- the best- and one day it’ll be you up there onstage with millions and millions of folk standin’ and wavin’ and thinkin’ you’re it! An’ that’ll be you made Donna Delaney! That’ll be you made!

This monologue is published by kind permission of the author. [/accordion_data]


[accordion_name id=”a1″]Accent: New Zealand (click to reveal transcript)[/accordion_name]

[accordion_data id=”a1″]BURY YOUR BONES by Alex Lodge

Character: Vic

Do you ever think about the exact moment that you will die? And how at that exact second, a dog will be taking  a shit, and a horse will be scratching it’s arse on a fence, and someone will be buying  an expensive top that they’ll never wear? They won’t even know, or care, what’s happening to you. Isn’t that horrible?

Romans called it debitum naturae:  debt of nature. Which I like. You probably don’t even study Latin in school, do you? Only if you’re rich. You should, everyone should. It’s a good language, feels brimful with magic, in my humble, ha! Well, in my once-highly-sought-after opinion. Here’s how I see it, when I can bear to look directly at the idea:

Imagine a lake. A huge lake. The biggest lake, beyond imagination. And you are a pebble.

Clink – you’re born – dropped in the water and straight away you begin to cause ripples. Your ripples spread out and out, crossing paths and catching the light and you hope that someone is watching all of this because it’s really quite interesting. You’re sure that you’re interesting.  You almost forget that at the same time, you’re sinking, sinking. And then – thump. You hit the bottom, and you lay there, with an infinite amount of other pebbles, at the bottom of a lake, for eternity. And every moment of living that you threw away is lost, it’s not turned into a star in the night sky that shines on forever or any bullshit like that, it’s just gone. Darkness and silence and emptiness and unfathomable nothingness where if you have any consciousness at all it’s probably only to howl at the memory of how good it felt to be alive for that tiny blip in eternity.

This monologue is published by kind permission of the author. [/accordion_data]