Drama Double Bill For Culture Week

Drama Double Bill For Culture Week

Down Arts Centre will host a double bill of fantastic dramas as part of Culture Week 2016.

The double bill will be kicking off on Wednesday 21 September at 8pm with ‘The Lantern Man’, the new play from acclaimed playwright Jane Coyle. 

Following the success of Jane’s previous play ‘The Suitcase’, which won the Belfast Telegraph Audience Award at the 2015 Ulster Bank Belfast International Arts Festival, she returns with the ‘The Lantern Man’, a moving human drama, set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent periods in Irish history - the months leading up to the Easter Rising.

The play now comes to full production with Dublin based actor Shane Whisker in the title role.  The top level cast is completed by Cathy Brennan-Bradley, Hannah Coyle, James Doran, Julie Kinsella, Noel McGee and Libby Smyth.

‘The Lantern Man’ central character is Johnny McGrath, a young man damaged in body and spirit. He returns to Dublin from active service on the Western Front, only to discover that he has inherited hundreds of glass lantern slides showing images of the troops at war. He decides to put them on show, to tell an increasingly critical public the real story of what their men are enduring in this bloody conflict. Johnny brings together two women from different social backgrounds, united by a terrible event which unfolded in the heat of battle. As tensions rise around him, Johnny learns that there is more to the pictures than meets the eye.

Following on from this, Saturday 24 September will see the second drama of the double bill, ‘In The Window’, written by and starring Nuala McKeever, visiting the Arts Centre.  Tickets are £12 / £10 concession.

Life hasn’t turned out the way Margaret dreamed. She’s lonely as hell, in a house that won’t sell, with no kids, no husband and a job that’s deathly boring. So tonight, she’s got a date with a bottle of pink fizz and a bowl of pink pills. She’s going to go out in style. 

But her romance with death is rudely interrupted by an intruder, a nosy neighbour and a policeman – a tall, handsome policeman. In her internationally-acclaimed comedy hit, Nuala McKeever delivers a poignant, hilarious cocktail that has wowed audiences from the USA to India.

Both shows start at 8pm (bar open from 7pm) with tickets priced at £12/10 concession. For further information or to book tickets please contact the Box office on 028 4461 0747 or visit www.downartscentre.com to see full programme of events.