a b "The Commitments (1991) – Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 4 July 2016. The seeds of destruction of group cohesion emerge fast in the form of Deco’s egotism and everyone’s jealousy over Imelda favoring Joey. Also, the saxophone player Dean is becoming enamored of jazz, “the anti-people music”: Martin Doyle, "Roddy Doyle adds his Two Pints worth to marriage equality Yes vote campaign", The Irish Times, 1 May 2015.

When his best friend Bimbo gets laid off as well, he’s now got company. The two play golf, hit the library, and just bum around. But then Bimbo – aided by his wife, Maggie – decides to buy a second-hand chip van (one that serves fish ‘n’ chips), so Jimmy joins him in fixing it up (it’s covered in grease, has no motor or wheels) and eventually working in it and sharing in the profits. a b c d " "The Commitments" 20th Century/Fox (Full Frame) – Region 1 – NTSC vs. 20th Century/Fox (Collector's Edition) – Region 1 – NTSC" . Retrieved 4 July 2016. Roddy Doyle is best known for being the author of The Commitments which was made into a smash hit film. When I started reading The Van I expected the same kind of larger than life characters as The Commitments and I wasn't disappointed.It's clear through his writing, that Roddy knows that it's like to lose your job - and we see it very well through Jimmy Sr's hopelessness, shame and knowledge about daytime tv. At least, that's until Bimbo loses his job, too, and the duo buys a burger van. And here’s Jimmy talking to Sharon about what he was doing when his children were born. (I take it Conways and Hikers are pubs.) So if yis want to be different what’re yis doin’ doin’ bad versions of other people’s poxy songs? That was it. He was right, bang on the nail. They were very impressed. So was Jimmy….

Altman, Billy (27 March 1992). "The Commitments Vol. 2". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 4 July 2016. I enjoyed The Commitments so much that I continued on to read The Snapper and The Van immediately. The focus of these two is on the Rabbitte family as a whole, whereas The Commitments only featured Jimmy Jr. The Snapper looks at the events surrounding 20 year old Sharon's pregnancy and the resulting effect on her family. Family patriarch Jimmy Sr. is the real hero of these novels - Doyle gives him a tough exterior but it is clear almost immediately that Jimmy Sr. is a gentle, loveable man. His relationships with his children, his wife, and his best mate Bimbo make for some of the most heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny dialogue that I have ever read.The Snapper and The Commitments were excellently funny novels that really captured Dublin of the era. They also were just challenging enough to make the reader have to think about how the characters ended up where they were. Especially The Snapper which took on Sharon's encounter with the father of the sanpper as rape, which was and still is today it seems, seen by many as her own fault for being too drunk to say no. My standard "book-review" is here: http://justinsbooks.wordpress.com/201... , but a few more personal notes on Barrytown: Knox, Kirsty Blake (27 November 2013). "Inside story: Roddy Doyle's got the Guts for awards glory". Irish Independent . Retrieved 27 November 2013. Soul is democratic, Jimmy. Anyone with a bin lid can play it. It's the people's music . . . Jazz has got no soul. It is sound for the sake of sound. It has no meaning. It's musical wanking, Brother." Pettitt, Lance (1992). Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester University Press. p.35. ISBN 978-0-7190-5270-5.

There was so much fun in the beginning. The scenes of rehearsals are very funny. One was rehearsing on his drums with a bin lid and a hammer. It was not a bin lid rather it was a tin tray, with a racehorse on it and two days later the horse was worn off. The book is more sort of a play than a novel, a playful play; it will give an added advantage if it is performed. There was a lot of Dublin slang and it will enrich your slang vocabulary if it’s not already well augmented! While all the characters will be rehearsing with their songs and you read it in a flow, I am pretty sure, you will feel their shriek, their groans, and their wails too, emanating out from the speakers along with the soul music, and that will create an enjoyable musical echo, full of sentiments, in and out of YOU. I loved such an echo. At times it was wild revelry. Maslin, Janet (14 August 1991). "Review/Film; How American Soul Music Conquered Dublin". The New York Times . Retrieved 4 July 2016. But, inevitably, Jimmy and Bimbo, both a bit short on the fuse and big on the drink (many pints are consumed in this novel!) have a falling out.An Irish family, the Rabbittes, have to work around the pregnancy of the oldest daughter, a new dog, and how everyone adapts to the situation. The dad is the numero uno character: highly lovable and really funny. It is a busy family with nei For all that, Doyle believes the play he has just seen in rehearsal – and which he wrote the script for – is no historical curio about an Ireland that no longer exists. “They were saying lines that are just as valid today. It’s still the story of a bunch of young people who get together to express themselves, the joy of that and the sexual tension. None of that has gone away.” When Jimmy Senior's friend Brendan, known to all as Bimbo, is made redundant Jimmy's mood is lifted as he gets to have some company to fill the long and lonely days. When Bimbo's redundancy cheque arrives Bimbo has an idea and the two friends embarked on an unlikely business venture. With Jimmy as manager, the newly fangled Commitments start recruiting and practicing in earnest, first in the garage of the only elderly band member ("Joey The Lips was a baldy little bollix nearly fifty."), later in improvised venues in front of a raucous audience. In between rehearsals Jimmy and Joey the Lips educate their fellow band members on the meaning of Soul: