Tony Kelly’s new comedy feature film The Hurler is currently doing the rounds in cinemas nationwide. I play the character of Allan, a keen hurler who just so happens to be on Ireland’s worst hurling team. I had a blast shooting this in and around Waterford last year. It’s produced by Lovely Hurling Productions and Dicemen Productions.
When Ireland’s most notorious hurling star becomes the first player in history to fail a test for performance enhancing drugs he agrees to some charity work in order to rebuild his shattered reputation, coaching Ireland’s worst team.
The cast includes Tony Kelly, Elva Trill, Jon Kenny, David McSavage, Sophie Vavasseur, Karl Spain, Stephen Ryan, Shane O’Keeffe, Michael Power, Eddie Jackson & Marty Morrissey. Yes, that Marty Morrissey.
My short film Two Catsin now available to watch online for a limited time.
A young woman attempts to scatter her brother’s ashes, despite the intentions of some suspect mourners. The film features Aoibhín Murphy, Peter McGann, Amy Dunne, Ed Murphy and meself in an old Corpo jacket. The film was shot and edited by Sean Clancy, produced by Alan Slattery and features an original score from Dave Sheenan. Also check out this new poster from Stephen Morton who also designed the titles for the film.
My play Denouement has just been published by the nice folk at Concord Theatricals.
Feels like a bit of a cheat to have a published play without a production but unfortunately, the pandemic fucked it. Still though, nice to be a published playwright. Here’s the jist of it:
Ireland, 2048. Edel and Liam have been married for 37 years. They live in a small isolated farmhouse at the foot of a mountain. The world is ending and we meet them in their final hour of life before everything is wiped out entirely. Their children have grown up and moved away and now they live together, alone. They take drugs, say goodbye to old friends and former lovers, air old grievances, argue, bicker and ultimately, try to reconcile their relationship. They will do this until the end of time.
Hopefully the show will get a full production sometime, ideally before it becomes a contemporary play in 2048.
Thanks to everyone at Lyric Theatre and Traverse Theatre for their support. Especially Rebecca Mairs.
Dead Stillhits RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player from Sunday November 1st at 9.30pm. Fierce excited to finally get this one out on Irish telly! It’s spent most of the year airing around the world so it’s very cool to get it in front of a home audience. And a particularly good time of the year for some spooky lockdowny viewing.
Dead Still, a six episode murder mystery series based around a memorial photographer in Victorian Ireland that I wrote, has started airing in the US and Canada on Acorn TV as of 18th May, with an episode weekly. It will be followed by the UK, Australia and New Zealand on 29th June. Ireland, still to be confirmed. The first two episodes are entirely relatable viewing fodder for anyone who has lost their camera back ups and/or been stranded in Dun Laoghaire when they don’t want to be and the third episode is prime Joe Duffy bait, so looking forward to that reaction when it airs in Ireland.
Four episodes are directed by the always brilliant Imogen Murphy and after 6 years developing this in coffee shops the length and breadth of Dublin, I’m delighted we’re finally getting it out in the world. Two of the episodes are directed by Craig David Wallace who is an immense talent and a joy to work with. The wonderful, eclectic cast is headed up by Michael Smiley, Eileen O’Higgins, Kerr Logan, Jimmy Smallhorne, Aidan O’Hare, Peter Campion,Aoife Duffin and Martin Donovan amongst many others. Big shout out to Deadpan Pictures who took a punt on this quite off kilter idea and got it to this stage.
The response to show thus far has been amazing and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s gone down. Here’s the trailer for the show if you’d like a taste of what to expect.
This lovely wee short from all round GOAT Fergal Costello that I worked on last year has just gone online. I got to play Max from Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are as an entirely unconvincing teenager and an entirely convincing haggard 30 something. Based on D. Gilson’s lovely poem about growing up and getting your shit together. I’m acting alongside my old mucker Clare Monnelly, who had the misfortune of playing both my girlfriend and my ma in a one month period in early 2019.
My short film Two Cats is getting a spin at Toronto Irish Film Festivalon February 29th if anyone is knocking about my old stomping ground of Toronto and wants to see us tearing strips off each other. Check out this very cool new poster by the talented and very brotherly Stephen J Morton.
Here’s the trailer for a short film I wrote based on my old summer job of tracking down illegal dumpers in a bin truck. It’s off now to scavenge around a few film festivals in the US, Australia and Europe. Directed by the always brilliant Imogen Murphy and starring John Connors, Ann Skelly, Aidan McArdle and Norma Sheahan.
So very excited to be bringing this show to the stage this August.
The Roaring Banshees by Peter McGann and myself is the second part of our Ripping Yarn Trilogy following on from The Hellfire Squad which we premiered in 2016. We’re again working with our favourite collaborator, the brilliant Sarah Baxter who will also be directing this show.
It’s one thing to come up with a fairly out there idea but another thing entirely to see it coming to life in such vivid fashion. Anyway, we thought Cumann na mBan versus Al Capone’s Outfit would be a cracking idea for a new play.
Cumann na mBan’s baddest, meanest and most ruthless beures, pulled from their individual clubs by Countess Markievicz and assembled into a unit of Ireland’s most feared assassins. Played by the amazing cast of Nessa Matthews, Ali Fox, Clodagh Mooney Duggan, Aoife Spratt, Amy Dunne, Laura Brady and Aine Ni Laoghaire.
Chicago, 1923.
After a failed assassination attempt on Eamon de Valera, a rogue Cumann na mBán unit flee across the Atlantic to escape the law. With Prohibition in full swing, they earn their keep by making bootleg poitín and selling it on to the Chicago mob.
But it’s not long before a gang war breaks out with them caught in the middle, and the lethal skills they honed back home hunting Black and Tans are taken to the bullet-strewn streets of the Windy City.
Here’s the trailer for the show, made by the brilliant Sean Clancy.
I’m so excited to see this one hit the stage and we hope audiences get a kick out of it. No Let Up.
I’m honoured as all hell to be writing the stage adaptation of Thomas Kilroy’s novel The Big Chapel which is premiering at this years Kilkenny Arts Festival. The show, like the book itself, is a fictionalised retelling of the Callan Schools Affair and also like the book will be a dark, satirical take on the religious zealotry and the weaponisation of lies.
The show is being produced by Asylum alongside the Abbey Theatre and Kilkenny Arts Festival. It will be directed by Donal Gallagher. The team behind this one are insanely good and intent on putting on quite the spectacle. 11th-17th August around the streets of Callan. Bring your own riot gear. https://www.kilkennyarts.ie/programme/the-big-chapel
