Wren Dennehy is an actor and writer from Kildare.
Wren's currently treading the boards at Dublin's Gate Theatre in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband - they previously shone as The Ghost Of Christmas Past in The Gate's take on Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Theatre and TV appearances aside, Wren is also a seasoned drag and cabaret artist, performing as their drag alter ego Avoca Reaction.
We asked Wren for their choice cultural picks...
FILM
Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge is my platonic ideal of cinema. Camp, gaudy and high octane with a strong emotional core. I love the lore attached to the production. Nicole Kidman broke a rib during rehearsals and continued to wear a corset during filming. I'm corseted for my current role in An Ideal Husband at the Gate, on days when I feel especially uncomfortable being laced in and cinched, I think of Nicole and persevere.
MUSIC
Robyn’s Talk To Me from her new album Sexistential is my song of the summer. I’ve also had Mk.Gee’s album Two Star and the Dream Police on repeat lately. My desert island artist is Kate Bush, her whole discography, I couldn’t choose a particular album or song.
BOOK
Two of my nerdiest passions are social history and true crime. Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five scratches both itches in a very satisfying way. The book gives historical accounts of the lives of the five women who fell victim to Jack The Ripper. It’s insightful, heartbreaking and has a strong sense of restorative justice for these women who have been reduced to caricatures by historians and the media. The accompanying podcast Bad Women is also excellent.
THEATRE
I’m obliged to say An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde. I’m currently playing the Countess of Basildon in a new production directed by Marc Borrull Atkinson at the Gate, running until July 11th. Doing Wilde at the Gate feels like a rite of passage as an actor and this production in particular is very fresh and exciting. My all time favourite play though is Top Girls by Caryl Churchill.
TV
With the current state of the world, I'm taking great comfort in watching only the stupidest of comedy. Kath and Kim is my current go to; I think it’s nice, different, unusual even.
GIG
I saw CMAT in Ally Pally in April and it was a religious experience.
ART
My favourite contemporary Irish artist is Kat Ennis, aka Feral Pen. Her work blends her fine art background with modern pop culture imagery. I have a print of her Miss Piggy painting on my mirror and it inspires me daily to indulge my inner diva.
PODCAST
I have a penchant for the macabre when it comes to podcasts. I’m a big fan of Uncanny, a paranormal podcast by Danny Robbins, the writer of the hugely successful play 2:22 A Ghost Story. It explores true encounters with the supernatural and the possible paranormal and skeptical explanations for them.
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TECH
Since the 1926 census records were made public, I’ve been bet into the National Archive of Ireland’s website researching my family’s history.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Something I’m dubbing ‘The Great Trans Theatre Takeover’. It’s a really exciting time for Irish trans artists. Although we’re still catching up in terms of representation in the arts, there are some really exciting trans and non binary artists making brilliant theatre like Carys Coburn, Aoife Sweeney O’Connor, Liath Hannon and Pea Dineen.
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An Ideal Husband is at The Gate Theatre, Dublin until 11 July 2026 - find out more here
