Today, Darren meets the authors, director and performer of "Good Morning, Faggi", a musical being performed in English tonight - Wednesday 7th June (and this coming Saturday) - at the National Theatre.
Gay actor Bjarni Snæbjörnsson finds his teenage diaries and is so taken by the discovery that he decides he has to write a show based on his childhood ponderings and letters to his mother - and of course, it needs to be a musical. As he navigates his personal history, he has a nervous breakdown. Knowing he still must write this play, with the support of dear friends, composer Axel Ingi and writer and director Gréta Kristín Ómarsdóttir, he tries to understand what happened to cause his mental collapse.
"Good Morning, Faggi" premiered in August 2021, during Reykjavík Pride, running for two seasons.
Darren is joined by Bjarni and Gréta to hear about the show, and how Bjarni's discovery of his old diaries sparked the creation of a show that has sold out over 120 times and toured extensively to venues, community spaces, and schools across Iceland.
Bjarni, Gréta and Axel's theatre company is called Stertabenda (in English: "perplex") - find out more at perplex.is
THE NEXT PERFORMANCE OF THE SHOW IS ON SUNDAY 11 JUNE - not Saturday as stated in the conversation!
The episode plays out with a special version of the song "Næs", from the musical, which was reworked to become the official Pride song for 2022.
An album of songs from the musical is at https://open.spotify.com/album/4TODgryZg9D7E3OzrASPAh - it's in Icelandic, but an English language version isn't far away.
And you can get tickets for Sunday's performance here - https://tix.is/is/leikhusid/buyingflow/tickets/10450/
Email RÚV English any time - [email protected], or find us on Facebook at facebook.com/ruvenglish
The RÚV English Podcast is daily English language programming from RÚV, the national broadcaster of Iceland.
