A lonely farmer's daughter hopes to find love at the village ballroom...
THE BALLROOM OF ROMANCE, it was nice to be reminded earlier of that lovely tv film from 1982, of a William Trevor short story "The Ballroom of Romance", which we saw several times back then, I am sure I video-taped it once, but seems impossible to see now. This is an achingly sad bittersweet tale of Bridie, a country girl living with her disabled father on a remote small farm in the west of Ireland, in County Mayo.
It is a lonely existance for Bridie, who is maybe late 30s, and whose chances for love and romance are passing by. She lives for the weekly, or is it monthly, dance held at the Ballroom of the title, run by - who else?- Cyril Cusack and his fussy wife. They arrive in their car and set up the lights and the refreshments and sell tickets as the lonely locals arrive for the dancing and hopefully courtship. The girls include Brid Brennan and Brenda Fricker as Bridie who has her eye on one of the men in the band, the drummer - but Bridie bitterly realises that a widow in the town has made him a better offer .... Brenda Fricker is ideal as Bridie, before her roles in MY LEFT FOOT, THE FIELD and others ...
It is a lonely existance for Bridie, who is maybe late 30s, and whose chances for love and romance are passing by. She lives for the weekly, or is it monthly, dance held at the Ballroom of the title, run by - who else?- Cyril Cusack and his fussy wife. They arrive in their car and set up the lights and the refreshments and sell tickets as the lonely locals arrive for the dancing and hopefully courtship. The girls include Brid Brennan and Brenda Fricker as Bridie who has her eye on one of the men in the band, the drummer - but Bridie bitterly realises that a widow in the town has made him a better offer .... Brenda Fricker is ideal as Bridie, before her roles in MY LEFT FOOT, THE FIELD and others ... 
Then Bowser Egan arrives, a rather rough country man, in a similar situation to Bridie - he lives with his old mother on their small farm, and he is quite open about waiting for her to die so he will have the place and can then join with Bridie, once her father has died. Its a bleak, loveless future mapped out for Bridie, who is getting too old for anything else and will be on her own otherwise .... they cycle to and from the ballroom on their bicycles, as Bowser stops to drink and half-heartedly fumbles at Bridie .... Fricker and John Kavanagh are perfect here at capturing desperate lives; Cusack as ever (as in that other Irish favourite of mine I WAS HAPPY HERE, Ireland label) observes all quietly ... its made me dig out some William Trevor stories - he is one of the best Irish writers, along with Edna O'Brien, Colm Toibin and others. It was a bleak life on those farms then, back in the '40s and '50s and early '60s, and in those rural dance halls. It is a very human story as directed by Pat O'Connor. At least I can read the Trevor story again ...
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