The Lieutenant of Inishmore

Usually my blog is something about East London and its connection to my novels and this one is no exception except the link is a bit more tenuous.

On Friday night the Hero@Home and myself went to London for a very special evening at the theatre. It wasn’t so much that we had tickets for a West End play but who the star of the production was.

Now as most of you who follow me know I have a bit of a thing about Aidan Turner so when I tell you the show we went to see was the Lieutenant of Inishmore, with him in the title role you’ll understand why it was a special occasion.

However, although the majority of the female members of the audience were there to see Aidan strut his stuff as Padraic, homicidal, cat-loving terrorist, his presence didn’t dominate the production.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore is very much an ensemble piece and had with excellent performances by Chris Walley as Davey, Denis Conway as Padraic’s father Donny and Charlie Murphy, who many watching wanted to swap places with, as Padraic’s equally bonkers girlfriend.

The whole two-act play motored along very nicely with many, many laugh -out-loud moments throughout, and wittily clever dialogue ‘there be no statute of limitation on mammy trampling’ being just one. Given the serious nature of the underlying subject matter this was a grand achievement.

For some one of my generation who lived and worked in London during the IRA’s 1970s bombing campaign on the British mainland some of the references, such as the one to Airey Neave and trips to Belgium caused a moment of pause, but in the context of highlighting how stupid and mindless the violence of that time was it worked.

Now, what might you ask has a play set in the 1980’s on the West Coast of Ireland about a bunch of crazy terrorists got to do with my Nolan Family East London novels? Well I’ll tell you.

Ever since I saw Aidan Turner cast as the vampire with a conscience in BBC 3’s Being Human I’ve imagined him playing Patrick Nolan in a TV adaptation of my Victorian East London books, No Cure for Love, A Glimpse at Happiness, Perhaps Tomorrow and Hold onto Hope.

 

 

Seeing him move across the stage and deliver his line with panache has only confirmed my choice. However, should my books ever be adapted for the small screen, I don’t think Mr Turner will available because I’m sure by then he’ll be universally known as Bond, James Bond.

 

 

The first in the new Stepney Girl’s Series

A Child of the East End

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