FEW dance routines can have had such a staggering influence as that staged as an interval entertainment in the televised 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.
For most people, it was the first time they had seen Irish dance presented as entertainment and the response was immediate – they wanted more.
Thus was born the stage show, Riverdance, featuring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, which opened at the Point Theatre, Dublin, in February, 1995. It was soon to become a world-wide phenomenon.
Today, three different productions of the show are on tour somewhere in the world with the European version arriving at Liverpool’s Empire Theatre from May 22 for a week.
Like its two counterparts – one for Ireland, the other for the USA – the production is run from a converted tram shed in the centre of Dublin. A very nice tram shed, it must be said.
It is here that I meet Julian Erskine, executive producer for the company, and a man who has been involved with the stage show from the very beginning.
He had worked his way up in the Irish stage world, from assistant stage manager through lighting design to producing.
When the TV spot on Eurovision proved such a success, a stage show had to be created to meet the demand. “But the people who produced the event on television were television people and did not know about stage shows.
“So I was brought in initially as a consultant because I had the experience with my production background,” explains Erskine. “And I sort of never went home.”
That first Dublin production was due to run a mere four weeks. “After the television event, there had to be a show. And after the stage show, because of the huge demand, there had to be a tour,” says Erskine.
He was given the task of organising one, a tour that went to the US and which now has those three different productions, each named after an Irish river.
