When Christmas and the new year celebrations are done and dusted, then there is just time to have one more festive party before normality resumes.

Oie’ll Verree is a concert that marks the old Christmas Eve, and traditionally takes place each year on January 5, the date that Christmas fell according to the old Julien calendar, as opposed to the Gregorian one we use today.

The concert takes place at the Ebeneezer Hall, Kirk Michael, and will this year feature a familiar mix of Manx culture, music, song, dance and poetry, coupled together with a warm and welcome Manx tay.

The folk dance troupe Ny Fennee will appear on the bill this year, along with a performance by the celebrated young harpist Mera Royle and the folk duo Marlene Hendy and Dilys Sowrey.

There will also be recitations of classic Manx poetry, including ’A Manx Christmas’, written by Kathleen Faragher and one of TE Brown’s most famous works, ’Betsy Lee’, read by Mary Faragher and Deborah Taubman.

The main focus of the Oie’ll Verree concert is the performance of the Manx Dialect play by the Michael Players.

The Michael Players have the rare distinction of being the last surviving local theatre group who still perform the plays, and were last year warded the highest mark of recognition to the services of Manx culture, the Reih Bleeaney Vanannan trophy for their work in preserving and maintaining the tradition of performing dialect plays.

’The award is a tribute to all the people who have worked hard to perform the play each year, and those who have worked so hard in the past to collect and preserve them,’ said Roy Kennaugh, an organiser of the Oie’ll Verree concert, and also one of the figures behind the Michael Players.

’We are the last group that are performing the dialect plays on the island, and we also maintain the largest collection of Manx dialect plays that exists.’

The play this year is ’A Li’l Smook’, written by the writer and academic JJ Kneen in the early part of the last century.

’It is about a wife who is trying to get her husband to stop smoking his pipe. She tries all sorts of tricks to get him to stop, and he begins to think he is losing his mind,’ said Roy.

’Eventually he finds out and he turns the tables on her in the second half of the play.

’It is a very funny play, and there are some great one-liners in there for the cast to have a lot of fun with.

’The actors have really got stuck into it this year, and they are giving it their all.’

Appearing this year are Michael Players regulars Chrissy Cannell, Simon Clark, Becky Traynor and Nicola Curphey, and will be joined this year by John Kaighin.

’John is a new face this year. He has been involved with the Oie’ll Verree before, but he hasn’t taken part in the dialect plays up until now.

’It is great to have so many younger faces taking part. It gives you a lot of faith and confidence that the tradition of performing the dialect plays will continue into the future.’

Also returning this year will be compere Zoe Cannell, who charmed the audience and introduced the acts at last year’s concert.

’We all thought Zoe did a wonderful job last year, considering that she had never done anything like that before.

’You could tell she did her homework, and put a tremendous amount of effort into it. We were delighted when she said she would like to come back and host it again.’

Roy also said that the Michael Players will be holding a repeat performance of the dialect play at the Peel Centenary Centre on Saturday, February 24, 2018.

by Mike Wade

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