‘Scarleh Fer Yer Ma Fer Havin’ Ya’
Translation: Scarlet for your mother for giving birth to you
Translation 2: That is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard!
‘Scarleh Fer Yer Ma Fer Havin’ Ya’ is the brainchild of Sarah Griffin and Lisa Keegan, two students both studying in NUI Galway. Taking the idea from similar nights run all around the world, from New York, London and now Dublin. Rather than just taking the idea and running with it, Sarah and Lisa have added a distinct Irish flair to the night, pouring shame and angst over an audience in only a way that the Irish can.
It is a Saturday night in Dublin, the rain and the cold aren’t deterring anyone from their night out and the streets of the capital are thronged with hen nights, stag parties, the loud and the drunk. Finding our way to the ‘Twisted Pepper’ a three floor bar in the heart of the city centre, we arrive to be greeted warmly by one of the hosts for the evening, Sarah. She points us in the direction to the upper floor and grabbing some quick drinks we head upstairs into a small but intimate room. A band is hurriedly clearing their equipment from the stage and we have a chance to talk to others attending the night.
We get chatting to a group of girls, all of whom are newcomers like ourselves to the night but are eager to find out how it all works. One or two have confessed to bringing their own diaries and poetry to the night but aren’t sure whether they will read it or not because ‘it is just too cringe worthy’.
A decent crowd have gathered into the cosy room and we take our seats as the band have finished and Sarah and Lisa take to the stage. With enough stage presence and charm between them to host the Oscars, they welcome us to night and kick things off by reading something each from their own diaries.
The audience falls silent, captivated and cringing silently, the odd gasp or ‘ooh’ escapes and then the floor erupts in laughter as Lisa tells the story of an altercation between herself and a former friend nicknamed so cleverly from Justine to Just-mean.
Now the @rcade had promised to share some it’s own awful teenage works with the world and we were called upon on stage right after the hosts had finished their piece and so we recalled some painful and traumatic teenager exaggerations much to the amusement of the audience.
Following on from our performance, came others including an anonymous attendee who had some tragic poetry recited by Sarah for the audience to guffaw and chuckle over. The highlights of the readings came from two people in particular, Liz, an apparent veteran to the stages of ‘Scarleh’ who read a letter to a friend in which she discussed the trials and tribulations of a 15yr old in a serious relationship (two weeks is a very long time after all) and Hanan who recited a letter she wrote at the age of 14 to her future son or daughter advising them of some of life’s troubles.
It is pretty clear from the beginning of the night that this isn’t a chance for an audience to come and mock and laugh at the person on stage but rather bask in the self-awareness that they too were just as dramatic and have just as embarrassing memories of their own. The laughter is a shared experience between the reader the audience and it all ends up being one great night chock full of former teenage angst mixed with a now much wiser sense of life and a little of experience.
Tired of nightclubs scratching out the same music on speakers that are too loud? Fed up of tragic comedians spewing on about the perils of being Irish?
Then you are need in of some serious ‘Scarleh’, a new and fresh alternative to the typical night in Dublin or any city or town for that matter. Organised by two professional and charismatic young women, the @rcade is definitely going to be returning to ‘Scarleh Fer Yer Ma Fer Havin’ Ya’ and we can only encourage you to do the same… after all we’ve all got a teenage drama queen inside of us.
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