The cast has been announced for the English premiere of acclaimed Northern Irish playwright Joseph Crilly’s On McQuillan’s Hill, which opens at the Finborough Theatre for a four-week limited season on Tuesday, 4 February 2020.
Directed by Jonathan Harden, the cast comprises Helena Bereen, Gina Costigan, Julie Maguire, Kevin Murphy, Declan Rodgers and Johnny Vivash.
“There’s a lock o’ new houses down in the village and there’s a Sinn Féin advice centre and the shop’s a Spar now, but nothin’ much else is different. The whole world is changin’ and Gentry stays the same.”
When proud IRA man Fra Maline is released early from prison, his daughter throws a welcome home celebration at the local community hall.
Unknown to the revellers the hall has been bought by Fra’s sister, Loretta, who turns up ready to demolish it after a twenty-year absence across the water.
Bitter memories and lies long buried in the bog threaten to resurface as an accidental family reunion descends into pitch black farce. Nothing ever changes in Gentry…
A vicious satire from a playwright hailed as “Ulster’s Martin McDonagh” (The Guardian), On McQuillan’s Hill gets under the dirty fingernails of small town Northern Ireland, confronting the horrors of abuse and the corrosive legacy of conflict with explosive wit and an insider’s eye for detail.
Originally produced by the renowned Tinderbox Theatre Company in 2000 at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, On McQuillan’s Hill now receives its long-overdue English premiere.
