Dormer, Doppelganger

We're getting excitations again as filming of The Good Vibrations Story will start properly next month. Last year we witnessed a trial scene at the Menagerie Bar in Belfast and it was a rare thrill. Now the production company is casting for particular roles and the local music scene is fizzing with little revelations. Indie kids are being cast as famous punks from 1978. Some of them are already getting serious and looking for motivation and method for those fierce events. Meantime, veterans are playing roles as paramilitary buffoons and even Harp Bar punters, waiting to see the Saturday afternoon strippers, rather than the evening's rock and roll action.

Anna Carr, daughter of Good Vibes creator Terri Hooley, is playing a nurse during the recreation of her own birth. Meantime, her father is spending quite a bit of time with actor Richard Dormer, who will assume the role of this outlandish man. I watched this weird communion a few nights ago in a bar and it was quite something. Dormer, who previously became Alex Higgins in the stage play, is now going through a Hooley transference. The Seventies beard is growing and the mannerisms are loading up.

Vocally, Richard is also learning. At any one time, Terri Hooley's speech patterns can reflect the Sixties promise of revolt and the Seventies experience of dread. Add to that a considerable deal of blarney, booze-fired indulgence plus a mocking, camp narrative and you have one of the most singular voices in town.

Terri's perennial chat-up line is to anoint each new female companion as "the future Mrs Hooley". But the production team of the Good Vibrations Story have given this routine an amusing spin, calling Dormer, "the future Terri Hooley".

At the end of the night Richard orders himself a taxi in the persona of his new character. The actual Godfather of punk watches as the actor borrows his style. At the end of the phone call, the taxi firm asks whom the car is coming to pick up. "Terri, says Dormer, without cracking a smile, "Terri Hooley".