Aoife Sweeney O’Connor is the host and co-founder of EGG (@cabaregg), Dublin’s favourite award-winning queer cabaret. They are a resident artist at Dublin Fringe, with their show An Evening With Wee Daniel debuting as part of the 2024 festival. The production runs from Sept 18 to 21 at Bewleys Café Theatre and travels to An Grianán in Donegal for a one-night-only performance on October 10.

Below, Aoife tells us GCN about the upcoming show and explains the inspiration behind it.

I’m making my case for Daniel O’Donnell as a queer icon. I am queer, and he is iconic and that’s enough. Liza Minnelli, Kylie Minogue, Daniel O’Donnell.

He’s the co-star of my one-person Dublin Fringe show An Evening with Wee Daniel. I play the notorious Wee Daniel, and Wee Me as well.

 

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The show is a love letter to Donegal, to Mammies, and to quare identity. It’s a camp, absurdist, all-singing, all-yapping autobiographical cabaret that will have you in stitches and might just break your heart.

It all started as a bit during my stand-up shows. I’d do my non-binary material, then the gay stuff, then off to Donegal and finally we’d land on Daniel.

I’ve missed many a flashing light and gone aways away over time on Daniel. Turns out I have a passion for this man like you wouldn’t believe. Get me on Mastermind, here we go.

I’ve found myself at more Daniel O’Donnell concerts than your average Joe (they/them). I’m from Donegal, and my grandparents are from Dungloe – a town absolutely steeped in Daniel lore. He’s from around the corner, Kinncasslagh.

And the thing is, there’s no show like a Daniel show. It’s like mass, but instead of communion and the Holy Spirit, it’s cups of tea and the body of “CHRIST almighty is he wearing the blazer with sequins?”

I saw him perform in the Bord Gáis recently. It was a one-night-only sold-out spectacular. The Daniel O’Donnell Show happened while Wicked was on in the same venue, so the set stayed up and he took over for the night. In Donegal, the show would be called Class.

So, there was Daniel bathed in pink and green lights looking like he was about to Defy Gravity, and let me tell you – Adele Dazeem herself would have loved it. He had four costume changes, two encores and thousands of feral pensioners on their feet having the time of their lives. And in the midst of it all, at least one little non-binary wannabe culchie me was there hooting and hollering along with them.

 

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What made me fall so madly in love with cabaret is the spirit of it all. The silliness, the joy, the feral comradery. The radical inclusivity and queerness. It’s a space so welcoming, so warm, so fun. A DOD show is not far off.

There’s such a charm and a warmth to Daniel, like you’re old friends and he’s giving you a call to check up on you because it’s been far too long Barbara! Even at a sold-out show packed to the rafters, he seems to know almost everyone by name.

An Evening with Wee Daniel is an identity journey. It’s about finding yourself and making peace with the time it took you to get there. It’s about grief and change and acceptance. It’s about Donegal and being queer and trying to find your place in the world, and what it’s like navigating that when you’ve lost someone who helps you make sense of yourself.

So no, you don’t have to be a Daniel fan to enjoy this show. You don’t have to know a stitch about him. Truthfully, it’s not really about Daniel – but don’t tell your granny that, I think we’ll be able to teach her something about pronouns. Through song! But if you come away from this show feeling even a sliver of what a 90-year-old woman feels at a Daniel O’Concert, well then that’s my job done.

Come along, be surprised. There’s no show like a Wee Daniel show.

 

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An Evening With Wee Daniel shows in Bewley’s Café Theatre from September 18 to 21 as part of Dublin Fringe’s 30th anniversary festival. For more information and to book tickets, click here.