Pucked is an electric comedy for GAA and theatre fans alike

Pucked returns to Irish stages after its SELL-OUT run in 2022. PUCKED is a fast paced, comedic, theatrical, one-man blockbuster!

PUCKED tells the story of the young and ambitious Matty Daly. Immersed in the GAA from birth, Matty has one dream and one dream only, to play on his senior team. When Matty finally gets called up, we join him as he learns the hard way, that playing senior isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.

The show is as fast as the game itself as Cathal Ryan transforms in and out of just under 30 characters bringing to life people that every audience member will be able to relate to.

PUCKED tackles issues such as self- confidence, individualism, masculinity and ambition with humour and energy, all the while celebrating the greatest sport on earth, hurling.

Writer and performer, Cathal Ryan comes from The Ragg in Tipperary and jokes that there, you’re born with a hurley in your hand. Immersed in the GAA from a young age, he ‘lived in that bubble’ until he found theatre at the age of 17.

With a granduncle involved in Thurles Drama Group, he went to plays often throughout childhood, but it never occurred to him that he could do it.

Or, as he says, he never did it in case he’d miss training! Cathal went to NUIG in Galway to study performance and made up for lost time by totally immersing himself in theatre and performance. Cathal was then accepted onto The Lir Academy's BA

Acting degree, claiming one of the 16 places on offer. He completed his training in October 2021. Pucked as a play came out of a conversation that Cathal had with Brendan Maher, artistic director of the Source Arts Centre in Thurles.

‘Brendan attended an online graduation play of mine that fellow Lir graduate and Clonmel native Jack Reardon directed and told me to get in touch when I graduated’.

Cathal had always been interested in creating his own work and had started thinking of ideas around a celebration of the GAA and his love of hurling, combined with ideas of masculinity and expectations of young men, particularly those growing up in rural Ireland.

‘With Pucked, I don’t want to teach anything, but I’d hope that people coming to the play, particularly young men, might feel that there are thoughts in it that they’d share’.

With encouragement from dramaturg Gavin Kostick and Bryan Burroughs, both tutors at The Lir, Cathal approached the Source Arts Centre who funded a first draft of Pucked.

‘My classes with Bryan were a huge inspiration for the show’ Cathal says. ‘He really opened my eyes to the limitlessness of theatre’.

Kicking off its All-Ireland tour at Source Arts Centre in Thurles, Pucked tours across Ireland. Endorsed by the GAA, this is a show for theatre and GAA fans alike.

More info available online at the following email: www.thesourceartscentre.ie 8.00 p.m Friday 31st January & Saturday 1st February | Tickets €19