Cork Profile - Patrick Talbot
When you were small, what did you want to be as a grown-up? A train driver. For many, many years I have been one of Irish Rail’s best customers!
Tell us about your career progression to your role today: From assistant stage manager with Joan Denise Moriarty’s Irish National Ballet to company manager with Scottish Ballet in Glasgow shortly after, to a production and tours manager at the Abbey Theatre Dublin, to founder/director of Feedback Theatre Company Cork, to production manager at the Gate Theatre Dublin, to director/CEO of the Everyman Theatre, to founder/director of Patrick Talbot Productions – it all seems to have happened in a short few years!
What is the most enjoyable aspect of what you do? Self-expression.
What motivates you? Self-expression.
What advice would you give your 15 year old self? Do not be shy and self-conscious – you will look back in 20 years and ask yourself why you were like that.
If you weren’t in the job you have, what would you be doing? Journalist.
What is your greatest life or career achievement to-date? Simply being in control of my own destiny.
Who has had the biggest influence on you in your life? My mother.
What is the life dream now? To keep going.
How do you switch off? Reading, walking, music.
What is your favourite Cork memory? Running after JFK’s limo as a toddler when he came out of the City Hall having been awarded the Freedom of the City.
What is your favourite place in Cork? Standing halfway up Friar Street on the southside at night looking across to the illuminated northside.
Do you have a favourite quote or motto? He/she who cares wins.
When are you at your happiest? When a hunch becomes a plan becomes a finished product.
What is your hidden talent? Finding the hidden talents of others.
What might we be surprised to know about you? I used to be an actor also. I played the baddie in the Cork Opera House pantomime for nearly 10 years!
Anything else you’d like to share with us? Come and see my latest production, ‘Sisters’, by Declan Hassett, featuring Fionula Linehan and Catherine Mahon Buckley at the Cork Arts Theatre from 1-11 March.
Name and position: Patrick Talbot, Founder/Director of Patrick Talbot Productions and Producer/Director of ‘Sisters’
Age: A theatre person never tells
Lives: Cork city
Pets: None at present but grew up with a cat who was as important a member of our household as any humans were
Favourite thing about Cork: The river being the fulcrum around which the city revolves
Least favourite thing about Cork: Some recent planning decisions
One thing you’d change about Cork: The planning department