Longford's Backstage all set for 'Blue Thunder'
Blue Thunder is an immersive, site-specific play written to be staged inside a parked 17-seater taxi minibus for an audience of 12 at a time.
The bus will be parked outside Backstage Theatre on Friday and Saturday, October 13 & 14. Over 16s.
Funny and frightening by turns, Padraic Walsh’s award-winning play examines what happens when the people who should be there for you, have nothing left to give.
A co-production from Cathal Cleary Theatre and Kelly Phelan, it is directed by Cathal Cleary (Druid’s Furniture).
The cast includes Gary Lilburn (Philomena), Eoin Geoghegan (Grace Harte, The Silver Tassie NT London) and Seán Doyle (Normal People, Bad Sisters).
It’s 3am in small-town Ireland. The nightclub is closed. The chipper is chaotic. And down a dark, quiet side-street, exhausted taxi-driver 60-year-old Brian is sitting in his minibus, finished work for the night.
But then his two drunk sons call demanding a lift home. They arrive at Brian’s taxi full of booze, songs and stories.
It soon becomes clear, though, that one of the lads has a plan to do something horrendous, something unforgivable – tonight. Can his father and his brother stop him or is he about to destroy his life?
Blue Thunder is the latest work from creative team Padraic Walsh and Cathal Cleary who met while doing their Masters in Theatre in NUI Galway in 2005. Their working relationship has seen them begin their careers in Ireland, move to the UK and make the decision to return home to Ireland to create the kind of work they really wanted to see on stage. Both are from rural Ireland and moved to London for many years where their tastes developed in parallel through seeing a huge volume and variety of international work.
Padraic Walsh is a playwright, screenwriter and fiction writer. Blue Thunder sold-out its three-week run at the VAULT Festival in 2019 and won the Innovation Award.
In her review of Blue Thunder, Lyn Gardner, Stagedoor described it as, “Padraic Walsh’s engrossing play…the audience is eyeball to eyeball with the actors.” Framed Magazine said it was “Rare, true, profound. Full of pathos, amazement and excitement.”
Cathal Cleary is an award-winning director who has directed for Druid Theatre, the Abbey and Dublin Theatre Festival among others.
Regrettably, the bus is not adapted for wheelchair access. Duration: 45 mins. Over 16s.
Booking for Blue Thunder at Backstage Theatre on Friday and Saturday, October 13 & 14 at 7pm and 9pm now open via Backstage online www.backstage.ie or telephone 043 33 47888.