THE CÁCA MILIS CABARET
Since 2009, The Cáca Milis Cabaret has been hosted and coordinated by Helena Mulkerns mostly at the Wexford Arts Centre and in Dublin at The Bewleys Café Theatre and Arthur’s Blues and Jazz Club. This eclectic evening of the arts is presented in a music-hall style format, with anything from new music, literature, dance, short film, spoken word, jazz, comedy and more. It was originally inspired by Jimmy Mulkerns, the “Rajah of Frongoch” (Helena’s grandfather) who was an actor and showman in the early teens of the last century who has his own webpage – to be uploaded soon. The Cáca Milis has recently streamlined its framework to present an even more exciting blend of emerging and established artists and this Spring presented its first live online show.
Accompanied for the last five years by singer songwriter Josh Johnston or Marion McEvoy, Helena has presented more than 600 performers from Wexford and farther afield at its alma mater, The Wexford Arts Centre, as well as other venues in Dublin, Limerick, Wicklow, Wales and Electric Picnic.
Down the years our literary guests have included anyone from Colm Tóibín or Mary O’Donnell to Dermot Bolger or Mia Gallagher; Peter Murphy, Eoin Colfer, Louise O’Neill, Emer Martin, Eamon Carr and many others.
Eleanor McEvoy, Jack L, Saint Sister or Niall Toner have been our musical guests, not to mention David Turpin, Miss Truly Divine, the Reverend JM’s Panic Worship, Lorraine McColgan, The Man Whom, Corner Boy, Alice Jago, The Poison Hearts, The Revelator Orchestra and again … many more.
In our Ciné Sweetcake slot, we present a short Irish film each time, and have been honoured to present a hugely diverse body of work from a range of established and emerging Irish film makers. We’ll be uploading a video gallery very soon.
Circus performers include Wales’s Bullzini (Christopher Dafydd), and favourite comedians are Italy’s Carlo Jacucci or Paul Tylak. Dancers have brought moves from sultry tango from Hernán Catvin to classic bellydance from Serena and Hossam Ramzy or Sandstorm Dance, with some kickass Irish Sean Nós in between. Our Burly guests have included the extraordinary Bella A GoGo and Azaria Starfire. We’ve been lucky enough to work with some fantastic photographers like Filip Naum, Arek Wnuk, Alan Mahon, Michael Duggan and videographers like Lisa Sills, Ewa Neumann. We are in the process of uploading a range of galleries that will reflect this diversity over the coming months.
We’re looking forward to seeing our audience live in the theatre soon, but meantime check out the video, by Michael Duggan, of our most recent live online cabaret, the “WEXLIT” cabaret – part of the Wexford Literary Festival 2020:
