There has been much disappointment locally at the cancellation of the Halloween fireworks in Enniskillen and Omagh. People were understandably looking forward to the return of the spooky festivities after a Covid enforced absence, and Fermanagh and Omagh Council have come in for criticism in the light of the decision to cancel.

However, one Fermanagh community drama group have taken a different approach to this turn of events. Enniskillen Light Operatic (ELO) took the cast of their upcoming musical to the streets of Enniskillen on Halloween to bring some Disney magic to the island town. The group are presenting “Disney’s Little Mermaid” in the Ardhowen Theatre later this month, and decided to cheer everyone up by staging an impromptu performance of some numbers from the show on the Diamond in Enniskillen.

ELO Chair John McCann explained why they did it. He said: “Like everyone else, our cast had all been looking forward to the fireworks and were disappointed that they didn’t go ahead. In fact, we were going to perform at the firework display and the guys were devastated to miss out on that.

"But, it did set our committee thinking, we could sit and lambast the Council or we could get up and do what we could ourselves. We decided that maybe we could do something to lift everyone’s spirits by performing a little snippet or two of our show in town for everyone to see.”

He continued: “It’s easy to be critical of Council decisions like this, but we all have to face the fact that we are in difficult times, and difficult decisions get made. We felt that we would try to make a positive contribution to the situation. Times are hard and whether as individuals, community groups or a community as a whole we simply can’t sit back and wait for Councils or governments to do things for us, we’ve all got to pitch in as best we can and do what we can to make things better in our own communities. Society works best when we all give a little of ourselves to make everyone else’s lives better.”

Thanking all of those who watched the performance and supported the group, John said: “We hope that people enjoyed our performance and that it helped brighten their own Halloween celebrations. And of course if they enjoyed what they saw, tickets for our show are on sale now from the Ardhowen Theatre.”