Home Local News Haunting war drama to grace Arts Centre stage

Haunting war drama to grace Arts Centre stage

0

Award winning playwright and songwriter Lizzie Nunnery’s new play will be taking centre stage at Edge Hill University’s Arts Centre next month.

Fresh from the success of acclaimed play Narvik winning last year’s Best New Play Award at the UK Theatre Awards, To Have to Shoot Irishmen, is inspired by the story of Irish writer and activist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, who was killed by the British military during the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916.

While his rebel friends were out with guns seizing public buildings and declaring a free Ireland, Skeffington was walking the streets calling for peace and preventing looting. While crossing a bridge Frank was pulled from the crowd, arrested without charge, held for two days then executed under orders from British soldier, Captain John Bowen Colthurst.

Weaving together drama and song, the new play conjures the shattering impact of those events on his wife and feminist activist Hanna, on William the teenage soldier who guarded Frank, and on Vane, the rebellious commander who bears the news of Frank’s death to Hanna.

To Have to Shoot Irishmen is Produced by Almanac Arts, Lizzie Nunnery’s female-led theatre company in association with Liverpool Irish Festival. It stars Gerard Kearns as Frank (Ian Gallagher in Shameless and the BAFTA Award-Winning The Mark of Cain, both for Channel 4; The Accrington Pals and Much Ado About Nothing, Royal Exchange, Manchester); Elinor Lawless (The End of Hope, Soho Theatre; King Charles III, Wyndham’s Theatre)as Hanna; Robbie O’Neil (Little Boy Blue, ITV and Jonathan Strange and Dr Norrell, BBC) as William and Russell Richardson (An August Bank Holiday Lark, Northern Broadsides and A View from the Bridge, Bolton Octagon) as Vane.

Watch the trailer here: youtu.be/mkiZJCfcXfo

Writer Lizzie Nunnery is an award-winning playwright and celebrated singer-songwriter. Her first play Intemperance was shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth Award and received five stars in the Guardian. In 2016 she premiered Narvik at the Liverpool Playhouse, which went on to tour to great acclaim. It was shortlisted for the international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and won Best New Play at the UK Theatre Awards 2017. Lizzie has also written extensively for BBC radio and has an original feature film in development with Blue Horizon Productions.

To Have to Shoot Irishmen will be performed at The Arts Centre on Tuesday 6th November at 7:30pm. Ring the Box Office on 01695 584 480 or click here for more information and to book: www.edgehill.ac.uk/events/2018/11/06/to-have-to-shoot-irishmen

Thursday 6th November 7:30pm

The Arts Centre, Edge Hill University, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, L39 4QP
Tickets: £10 / £8 concs / Free for EHU students with Arts Centre membership

edgehill.ac.uk/artscentre

01695 584480

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here