A Bolt from D’Blue – Viking Theatre – Review
by Frank L.

A Bolt from D’Blue – Written and performed by David Gilna

David Gilna is in his mid-thirties. More so than most he is a person who is lucky to be alive. The world of the theatre is his world. In this well constructed piece he describes his early life in Swords where he was brought up. He describes with fine use of language the everyday happenings of his life with snippets of information about his mother, a religious woman who also understands the importance of clean underpants. He goes to the United States as an eighteen year old for the J1 experience when disaster strikes. He is struck by lightning. He is in intensive care. He somehow manages to survive. He is no saint and his script lets us know what his fears were with his body and how all of it may work or not work if he was to survive. As a young man of 18 years he knows what is important.

Gilna, having by a hair’s breadth survived, celebrates the second eighteen years of his life. He praises and concentrates on all of the good things in his life but he has faced a number of subsequent disasters not of his own making. Again out of these catastrophes he has the inner strength to “rise above”. The concept of self pity is not in his make up. His text describes in fine prose the various escapades and moves easily between the comic and the tragic and manages also to mix the two together to increase the intensity of both. In short, Gilna knows what he is doing. In that regard he bookcases each performance with a guest who appears briefly at the beginning and end of the performance. It adds to Gilna’s aura of a man of friendship.

The set consists of memorabilia from his life to which he makes occasional references. They create an ambiance of familiarity which makes each member of the audience feel that Gilna is their particular friend. His black casual attire and his body language all proclaim a young man who is at one with himself. He has a rare talent to be intimate with each member of the audience eventhough he is on a public stage.

Gilna is fine story teller and he has a gripping story to tell. It is an uplifting experience to be in his company for an hour and a bit. It is a play which started life on the other side of the Atlantic last year. It is now in Dublin and it will raise your spirts. It is a privilege to be in the company of David Gilna.