Mullingar show destined for Electric Picnic...

Local drama group, Mullingar Rail Theatre Company, are set to perform their successful production of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo"s Nest" at Ireland"s boutique festival, Electric Picnic, which takes place in Stradbally Estate, Co. Laois on Friday and Saturday, August 29 and 30.The group which has aims of becoming a professional touring company by 2010, have played to sold-out audiences, both in Mullingar and all over Ireland with its production of the 'Nest'.The Electric Picnic music festival, which made the TimesOnline"s list of 'Europe"s 20 best summer music festivals', invited the Mullingar group to perform in the alternative section, a huge honour for Mullingar Rail Theatre Company.Electric Picnic has established itself as a truly unique Irish festival. It is described as a 'boutique festival', partly because it takes place on the 600-acre Stradbally Hall Estate outside Dublin, but additionally, the festival attracts an incredible line-up each year of musical acts. The musical line-up this year, includes the Sex Pistols, Sinead O"Connor, Sigur Ros, My Bloody Valentine, Underworld, George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars, Turin Brakes, The Breeders, Goldfrapp, Henry Rollins, Wilco, Duffy, The Roots, The Gossip and Franz Ferdinand. However, Electric Picnic also features a strong theatre element, as well as comedy, cinema, and spoken word performances. And with parts of the festival focused on the kids, there really is something for everyone."One Flew Over the Cuckoo"s Nest" was a bestselling novel by Ken Kesey, and premiered as a play in 1963 in Dale Wasserman"s stage adaptation, which was later adapted to film in 1975 by Milos Forman. The movie was a huge success and was the first to win all five major Academy Awards for Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director and Screenplay.The plot tells of one Randle Patrick McMurphy, played here by Alan Conroy, who is a recidivist criminal serving a short prison term on a work farm for statutory rape, who is transferred to a mental institution due to his apparently deranged behaviour.His ward in the mental institution is run by a calm but unyielding tyrant, Nurse Ratched (Orla Duffy), who has cowed the patients - most of whom are there by choice, categorised as 'voluntary' patients - into dejected submission.While he initially has little respect for his fellow patients, McMurphy gradually forms deep friendships in the ward with a group of men which includes Billy Bibbit (Gary Nolan), a suicidal, stuttering and helpless young man whom Ratched has humiliated and dominated, and 'Chief' Bromden (Liam Gilleran), a 6" 5' muscular Native American. Believed by the patients to be deaf and unable to speak, Chief is mostly ignored but also respected for his enormous size. In Billy, McMurphy sees a younger brother figure whom he wants to teach to have fun, while the Chief ultimately becomes his only real confidant, as they both see their struggles against authority in similar terms."One Flew Over the Cuckoo"s Nest" reflects the culture in which it was written and yet it stands strong on its own merits. Kesey developed the novel while a graduate student in Stanford University"s Creative Writing Programme. The novel was partly inspired by Kesey"s part-time job as an orderly in the Palo Alto Menlo Park Veterans" Hospital. Kesey also had begun participating in experiments involving LSD and other substances for Stanford"s Psychology Department. Speaking to patients under the influence of LSD, Kesey began to perceive that society had turned functional people insane instead of allowing them to find their way back to functioning in society.The Rail Theatre Company will also give one last performance of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo"s Nest" to their home town of Mullingar, before setting off for Electric Picnic on Wednesday, August 27. The performance is in aid of local charity and tickets cost €20, available from the Mullingar Arts Centre box office on 044 9347777 or at reception. It is in aid of a good cause so please support.