“Gerrup gerra yer ma’s yer da”… That’s Soo Povo at Axis ✨ |
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| Axis Ballymun Wednesday 1 April, 7.30pm Tickets €17/€15 |
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| The smash hit debut from D’Girlos Theatre sold out Dublin Fringe Festival and wowed audiences. Who are the young creatives behind the “riotously sharp” production? We ask girlos Trudy Nolan and Sophie O’Toole to tell us more about the show… |
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| Q: How would you describe That’s Soo Povo? |
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| A: That’s Soo Povo is a bold, multidisciplinary theatre piece that interrogates classism in the arts through humor, drag, and raw personal storytelling.
It follows two working-class drama students, Chantelle and Craoí, as they rehearse a scene from The Plough and the Stars, exposing the tensions between those who mask their class identity to fit in and those who refuse to.
Their conflict reaches a breaking point, summoning Queen Povo, a larger-than-life, drag-infused entity who forces them and the audience to confront the realities of class.
Queen Povo’s presence disrupts things entirely through lip-syncs, comedy, and scholarly sources. She injects a chaotic, camp energy that shakes up both the narrative and the audience’s understanding of class. The work is messy, vibrant, and unapologetic, reflecting the lived reality of working-class artists who are either excluded or commodified by the industry. |
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| Q: What was the inspiration for the show? |
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| A: The show was inspired by our mutual experience in college and the barriers we faced as working class women. It was something we felt some people were nodding towards, but it was rare that people just talked about it as it is. Cue the fairy God Mother; Queen Povo. She slotted into the piece perfectly as the true authentic girlo. The context of this work is deeply relevant. Dublin’s theatre scene remains dominated by middle-class voices, with working-class stories often filtered through an outsider’s lens. This show isn’t just about representation – it’s about interrogation. It asks who gets to tell these stories, who benefits from them, and what happens when working-class artists finally take control of their own narratives. It’s theatre that refuses to behave, much like the voices we aim to amplify. |
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| This year is the centenary of The Plough and the Stars. What is the significance of O’Casey in That’s Soo Povo? |
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| The Plough and the Stars is the piece that the characters are rehearsing. They’ve been cast in the piece together – and they’ve never seen the play done by someone with their own accent. We are really interested in the O’Casey obsession. Why is his work staged again and again, but somehow it feels like working class voices are often shut out from the conversation? We wanted to reclaim it and give ourselves the space to represent the work how we want. As artists and Dubliners, we have a love for O’Casey, but also a fascination and frustration with the play’s legacy. We want to have the conversation around who is telling our communities' stories, and why? Why are the very voices that O’Casey sought to amplify shut out of the room? This gave us the bones and structure of That’s Soo Povo. |
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| | What is D’Girlos to you? What’s your goal as a company? |
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| D’Girlos is a platform for showcasing working-class art at its finest and most unapologetic. The company was created to champion stories, voices, and artists who come from working-class backgrounds and to ensure those experiences are represented truthfully on stage. We just really love being girlos and want to pass that joy on. We want D’Girlos to grow into an influential voice within the arts: a company that not only creates bold, original work but is also in the room making the bigger decisions and pushing the wider industry to think more critically about representation, access, and whose stories are being told. Honestly, it’s kind of crazy to be considered unique because we just write about our lives. The people we grew up around, our families, our background, our stories. We like to capture all the joy and the pain. But we just like to add a bit of glitz and glam and give our own little pop as the girlos we are. We are just authentically ourselves and bring our own energy to our work. |
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