After a successful Irish tour in 2017, 2019, and again in 2022, as well as ten sold out seasons at the Irish Arts Center in New York, ‘Muldoon’s Picnic’ arrives at Armagh’s Market Place Theatre.
An omnium-gatherum of poetry, prose and music, Muldoon’s Picnic is a cabaret-style evening, by turns witty, exuberant, and sophisticated, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, ‘the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War’, (Times Literary Supplement).
Each show on the tour has a bespoke mix of artists from the worlds of music and literature. The Market Place Theatre will be the venue for one of Ireland’s most beloved poets and recent TS Eliot Prize nominee Jane Clarke. Jane will be joined by the sounds of composer and musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire as well as internationally acclaimed author and Booker Prize winner Anne Enright.
The title ‘Muldoon’s Picnic’ refers to a popular 19th-century New York vaudeville act, which inspired the New York based Irish poet, Paul Muldoon, to begin hosting these carefully blended evenings of literature and music back in 2014.
Paul describes ‘Muldoon’s Picnic’ as a direct response to that ancient impulse to perform, to share, to make one’s own amusement; “It’s one of our most basic instincts; to listen to a song, listen to a poem. Even in this era when people have their noses stuck in their tablets, it still works.”
‘Muldoon’s Picnic’ will take place at The Market Place Theatre, Armagh on Wednesday 15 May. Tickets can be booked online at www.visitarmagh.com/marketplacetheatre or through the Box Office on 03300 561 025.