Published in the Sunday Tribune, August 10, 2008 It’s not difficult to imagine Brian Friel and his Field Day buddies sketching out the framework for ‘Translations’, in Derry in 1980. They start with the premise of setting it during the 1830s Ordnance Survey, an exercise that involved “standardising” Irish place names in brutish English: a… read more +

Published in the Irish Independent, Saturday August 9, 2008 If you want to attend a show at the Belarus Free Theatre, first of all you have to find the mobile phone number of their manager. It’s not on the web. It’s not in the phone book. Just ask around until you get it.

A long time ago (the days before cheap flights), in a city far, far away (by road, at least), a young, earnest Irishman found a job paying £2.50 an hour, for a ten-to-twelve hour day, in a theatre. Actually, it wasn’t a theatre, but was an old, rambling building, that was pretending to be a… read more +

Published in the Irish Independent, March 2007 The US is kicking a dead horse in Iraq, the outcome of a misconceived adventure that was supposed to be about taming the wild. Their only hope for retaining some dignity is to bury the bodies and get out as quickly as possible. This could be what the… read more +

Published in the Sunday Tribune, July 27, 2008 Earlier this week, I got an email from a writer friend, Simon Doyle. He was writing a new play, he said. It was about the kidnapping of a South Korean film director and his ex-wife actress by North Korean spies in 1978, and their being “forced by… read more +

From the opening scene of the young prince Hippolytus slumped in an armchair in front of the tv, masturbating into a sock, to Phaedra’s hips and heels, to ‘Tainted Love’ on the soundtrack, to the ritualised violence of the extraordinary closing scenes, it lurches between louche cool and a deeply moral sense of horror with relentless economy.

Published in the Sunday Tribune, July 13, 2008 In the drawing room of a house on Dublin’s Northside, Rita Dunne sits, remembering. How her father mentored her young husband, Willie, early in his political career. How Willie rose fast through the ranks, with her at his side, to become Taoiseach. How their marriage couldn’t weather… read more +

This was the year when immigrants got themselves a mayor, a minister, and a voice on the Irish stage. As in politics, so too in the theatre: most of the talking for immigrants is being done by the Irish – but not all.