Martin Beanz Warde told David Hennessy about bringing his debut play The Dead House to the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith and why he dislikes being positioned as a spokesman for both the traveller and LGBT communities.
The well known comedian and TV presenter Martin Warde Beanz is bringing his play The Dead House to The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith for its UK premiere.
A familiar face on RTE and Virgin Media, Martin’s TV series The End of the World with Beanz aired on RTE One last year with series 2 to follow in 2025.
The Dead House is Martin’s debut play and has received rave reviews since it debuted last year. It has played Galway Theatre Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival and Kilkenny Arts Festival.
The piece has been described by The Irish Times as a “powerful and moving dark comedy” which delves into the complex themes of family, tradition, and self- acceptance.
The story centres around Patrick, an Irish traveller who hasn’t been home in ten years but returns from self-exile for his grandfather’s funeral.
Martin is a member of the travelling community.
He is also gay like his character Patrick so the play deals with two stigmas that he has dealt with.
Patrick is a character haunted by a trauma in his early life. Martin also knows trauma having carried his 12-year-old cousin out of a swimming pool after she drowned when he was not much older than her.
Are you looking forward to coming over with the play?
“I absolutely am.
“I don’t think there’s been many plays in UK theatre by Irish travellers, and I certainly don’t think there are many with a protagonist being a gay Irish traveller either.
“It’s centred around a dead house.
“I actually think that death is the one thing that connects all communities, all types of people from all types of backgrounds.
“No matter where you’re from in the world if you see the play, you’ll understand some of the customs or some of the traditions.
“I mean even the roles that people play at a funeral.
“I think another universality in communication is laughter.
“I think when you can blend both, you’re doing something right so I’m really looking forward to it.
“This will be my first time performing in the UK and I’m hoping that the audience enjoys it as much as I know I’m going to enjoy delivering it.
“I’d love to do more across the UK.
“I’d love to bring it on tour across the UK.
“Because I think that on the back of a lot of the negative stuff that’s been in the media in the UK around travellers, I think now is the time to start showing the artistic side, the positive stuff, the creativity and also a glimpse into how we perceive our world.”
Do you remember being inspired to create it?
“My granny passed away in 2020 just before the first cases of COVID were being mentioned so for a large part of the year of 2020, I had been consumed by the death of the last remaining elder in my family.
“She was the last grandparent and the last connection to the past.
“There’s a lot of loss and yearning when you lose the last connection to the past.
“After going to the funeral, I just felt as though there was something beautiful about the sorrow that’s shared.
“There’s something human about that place where you’re allowed to be vulnerable.
“How men treat their emotions at a funeral leaves a lot to be desired.
“It’s very, very tough to be a man in a masculine world, in a hyper masculine community, a traditional community. It’s very difficult to show raw emotion and that plays a part in this play.
“Patrick himself has been in self-exile for well over a decade because of his sexuality and he felt as though he could never be accepted by his community or his family so he flew the coop and he moved up to the big, massive, sprawling metropolis that is Galway city thinking he was getting away from it all and thinking that he could never go back.
“But, just like most Irish families, like most families of anywhere in the world, you’re honour bound to return for a funeral when one of the elders passes away.
“He knows he has to return.
“Then Patrick takes us through it on a trip through the house and the pictures on the wall tell a story of the family and the happy days.
“He reaches upstairs and his world starts to gravitate towards the reality of the situation that he’s in.
“He now knows that somebody has passed away, he feels that somebody has passed away and he’s got this issue himself from a past trauma where he can’t regulate his emotions.
“He doesn’t know how to regulate his emotions.
“Patrick has to overcome the ghosts of the past in order to say goodbye to the body of the deceased in the present.
“It’s a journey he must go on but all throughout the play, he’s telling jokes because that’s a coping mechanism.
“It is a journey through a house, it’s a journey through a community and it’s a journey through our hearts and our souls. Our past, our present and futures.
“It’s a journey that Patrick must go on.
“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, it sounds a bit semi-autobiographical’ because it is me being a gay traveller writing about a gay traveller going on this journey but actually Patrick wasn’t always gay in the writing process.
“I chose to make him gay because it gave more depth to him as a character and it’s something that I can draw upon and write with authority on.
“I had to come out twice in my life.
“You come out to the travellers to tell them you’re gay and then when you get into the settler community and you go to a gay bar, eventually you have to tell them you’re a traveller.
“Not many people experience that: A minority within a minority.
“I also think there’s a massive under representation of LGBT travellers in the arts and there is a treasure trove of stories and experiences to mine.
“I think that the audience can connect with that because everybody has an LGBT friend.
“Any gay person will tell you what it’s like going back for a big family event when you have traditionalists within it. It’s very, very difficult and it can be quite scary and Patrick has to face that.
“I just believe that those stories need to be told now more than ever.”
You’ve often spoken for both the traveller and LGBT+ communities, is that your mission or does it happen by default?
“I think it happens by default.
“I do not speak for my community no more than I speak for the LGBT community.
“I speak for myself as a person who’s connected to both and from both.
“Because when you’re a minority and you get somewhat of a platform, you’re pushed into a position to have an opinion and you may not have an opinion.
“You’re expected to be able to speak about those things when, in actual fact, it’s quite draining because I’m an artist, I’m not an activist.
“My art may be activism but that’s not the primary source of the energy going into it, but my art highlights the issues.
“There’s no taking away from that but those issues stem from my own personal life experiences and that just happens to be as a traveller and a gay man also.
“But I really dislike when people position me as a spokesperson.
“I think it’s an unfair level of commitment to the cause because I have two identities, which one do I identify more as?
“I mean, I don’t live in a caravan but ethnically, I’m a traveller.
“I don’t tell the world that I’m gay but my sexuality and inner identity is gay.
“But it doesn’t mean that I have to speak about that on behalf of other people going through something similar.
“I think sometimes it can be quite damaging to speak on behalf of a whole community because by doing so, you’re generalising the experiences of the whole community which is part of the problem.”
Do you think we’re getting to a stage of more understanding though? Do you see greater communication or understanding of the traveller community?
“Absolutely and I think that theatre plays a great role.
“Now we’re seeing a lot more theatres and art spaces opening their doors and welcoming travellers in.
“I mean a prime example of that is the ICC reaching out and asking me to put my play on.
“That’s an incredible step forward.”
Have you got the reactions of your own community to the play?
“Yeah, I did a few work in progress shows.
“I did one for Dublin Theatre Festival and then I did another one for Traveller Pride.
“That was an interesting one because for the first time, the traveller community didn’t see me slinging jokes and doing stand-up comedy, I was doing theatre but there was a couple of moments where some of the crowds didn’t know that and were heckling which was a beautiful thing because it was a transitionary period for them and for myself.
“I found myself, while in character, retorting and having the banter back and then using that quick wit to incorporate them into the show.
“I did Galway Theatre Festival as well and somebody’s phone started ringing in the middle.
“It was actually in the deepest, darkest moment of the play, the most highly emotional part of the play.
“Patrick is just saying goodbye to the ghosts of the past so that he can move forward with strength and with meaning.
“A very low moment.
“He’s quite sad- and somebody’s phone goes off.
“Patrick just waits there and really lets the phone call linger in the air.
“You can just hear a pin drop even with the phone ringing.
“Patrick just stalled everything and holds everyone for a second.
“And then when the phone call ends, Patrick- which was an ad lib moment- says, ‘I think I’m going to go into the house now. I need to say goodbye to my grandfather and hopefully, along the way I’ll find out what f**ker left that phone on in the middle of a funeral’.
“That got a standing ovation because the audience understood exactly what happened and what was going on.
“Then I was able to bring them back down to the seriousness of it.”
The story could be any community or any family, it’s not specific to the traveller community in that sense, is it?
“Not at all.
“Patrick, at his core, represents any person who feels isolated or distanced from their family or their community and is honour bound to return home on the day of a funeral.
“Patrick represents those people who feel as though they may not be welcome in their own home and I think Patrick represents those people who realise that your family aren’t all against you.
“They have their own issues.
“You’re not the centre of the universe.
“I think that’s what Patrick represents, anyone feeling that anxiety.
“A lot of the stuff that happens with Patrick is in his head and that’s what it comes down to.
“He has mental health issues that have gone unresolved.
“He’s never had counselling.
“He’s never had help to overcome those ghosts of the past and the trauma that he experienced when he was 13 years of age.”
A big issue in the travelling community, and any marginalised community, is suicide.
“I think one in 11 travellers will die by suicide is a statistic.
“I have lost two first cousins to suicide.
“I don’t think there are any travellers out there who haven’t been in some way affected by a suicide.
“Every one of us has been affected in some way by suicide.
“That’s how rampant it actually is.
“It’s a crisis point.”
Are the services responding to this crisis though?
“I don’t think adequate services have been there but I do believe that a lot of progress has been made on that front.”
You say it’s not semi-autobiographical but there’s a lot of you in Patrick, isn’t there?
“Of course there are similarities.
“He’s gay, he’s a traveller but that’s where the similarities end actually.
“The only trauma I had from my childhood, which was in around the same age, was taking my cousin, who was 12, maybe 11, out of the swimming pool after she had drowned.
“I took her out in my arms which is a massive trauma but this is totally different.
“The trauma that Patrick experiences is connected with first love and shame and guilt and not seeing yourself as normal, so very different.
“But I do draw upon the traumatic experience, the feeling, what that does to you, how it numbs your senses for a long, long time.
“I took parts of that from reality and placed it into a situation.
“Sometimes art imitating real life creates the most magnificent pieces of art.”
Was there therapy in writing it for you?
“I don’t think I got too much therapy out of this play but I would probably hold my poetry for something like that.
“I usually write poetry when I’m feeling blue or moody.
“I think I keep the happiness for the comedy but I find poetry is my escape. Not even an escape, my poetry is my release valve.
“I could say things in the poem that I couldn’t say out in reality and maybe Patrick is doing the same.
“Maybe he’s saying things about his community.
“Maybe he’s noticing the ordinary and highlighting the ordinary.
“Maybe he’s doing that as a form of therapy.
“Maybe he’s telling himself that, ‘This is normal. You’re normal’.”
What range of reactions have you had to the piece?
“I’ve heard people crying in the middle of the audience and then I’ve had uproarious laughter, crazy laughter, loud, ripping the roof off the place type laughter from the audience.
“Then I’ve had people come up afterwards saying it was the funniest thing they’ve ever seen, and other people saying it was so sad but it was blended beautifully with the humour.
“Because it’s what guides me when I write and why I write dark comedy.
“I think that when you bring an audience on a journey into their emotions, you’re invading their private parts of their heart and it’s only fair that you give them a release.
“I don’t think it’s fair to bring somebody into their heart and their emotions and their soul and just leave them there to linger away and to rot away in the pain and the anguish.
“I think it’s the responsibility of me to write in some lines that will allow them to have that release and that release is laughter.
“I’ll always remember that because that stuck with me, that kind of catch and release. Catch the emotion but let them release.
“In the play there’s a line, ‘Men with their laughing faces and laughter. Of course they’re laughing. Sure ‘tis only the silent ones that suffer from the swollen throat of choked emotions’.
“That’s what it is, choked emotions.
“You feel it in your throat when you want to cry but you’re holding it back.
“We’ve all experienced that.
“We’ve all felt that lump in our throat, that soreness because we don’t want to cry so we cough or we laugh.
“That’s what the men do at funerals.
“They would be the ones telling jokes or on the side of the house and the men would be laughing because it’s better to laugh than to cry in front of other men, unfortunately.”
The Dead House plays The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith Thursday 3 April and Friday 4 April.
For more information and to book, click here.
For information about Martin, click here.