B

Peter Ballance

Born Galway 1971

*Included due to a lifetime contribution to local stage and screen

Reliable and assured screen and for legitimate reasons, intermittent stage actor, a member of Sean Hollywood’s well regarded Newpoint Players during 1989/90. He produced a memorable turn as the fictional Bert, in the company’s production of Willy Russell’s award winning Beatles homage, ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert’, staged at the Newry and Mourne Museum in 1990.

In 1991 he made his Dublin stage debut as Cormac in the Pigsback Theatre Company’s adaptation of Deirdre Hines’ social drama, ‘Howling Moons, Silent Sons’, which premiered at the Project Arts, later transferring to the Abbey. Following an Irish tour in 1993 with writer/director Gerard Stembridges’ thriller ‘Ceaucescu’s Ear’, he moved north to the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, appearing in numerous productions during 1994. He was Young Len in the premiere of Martin Lynch’s political retrospective, ‘Pictures of Tomorrow’, directed by Andy Hinds and was principled house-painter Lar in Jimmy Murphy’s dark comedy ‘Brothers of the Brush’, featuring Mark Mulholland as the older and self entitled workmate, Jack.

At the Lyric again in 1995, he proved convincing as the joker Arthur, alongside Emma O’Neill as the hard-bitten Sandra, in director David Grant’s revival of Christina Reid’s tragicomedy ‘Joyriders’, surprisingly the first Northern Irish staging of her 1986 play. He reunited with Emma O’Neill again, when director Tim Loane cast him as resentful actor Tim in the premiere of Darragh Carville’s IRA ceasefire themed ‘Language Roulette’, presented at the Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast in May 1996.

The late nineties offered him a relative burst of screenwork, with a low- key introduction as Johnny, in director Henry Herbert’s adaptation of Colin Bateman’s first novel ‘Cycle of Violence’, retitled ‘Crossmaheart’, released in 1998. Described as a crime drama, set in troubles torn Northern Ireland, the cast was a veritable roll call of local actors, including Conleth Hill, Gerard Rooney, Richard Orr, John Keegan and John Hewitt.

He took a similar modest credit  the same year in director Roger Michell’s West Belfast drama ‘Titanic Town’, starring Julie Walters and Ciaran Hinds. A somewhat irregular period in theatre in the early 2000s was illustrated by his rash of work in 2002, which preceded a lengthy spell of frontline inactivity in that medium. Notable amongst those performances was his Belfast busman Rinty Sharvin, opposite a marvellous James Ellis in dual roles, in the premiere of Brian McAvera’s poignant three-hander ‘Kings of the Road’, staged at the Old Museum Arts Centre in May 2002.

On television in 2004 he played Mark Breslin, husband of bomb victim, Geraldine in Paul Greengrass and Guy Hibbert’s docudrama ‘Omagh’, directed by Pete Travis. His last theatre appearance was an unspecified role in Dubbeljoint Theatre Company’s production of Brian Campbell’s fatuous exposition of racism, ‘Voyage of Return’, directed by Pam Brighton, which premiered at the Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen in March 2005.

In the intervening years he has worked exclusively on screen, with only a modicum of success. In 2006 he appeared as Stephen Doherty in two episodes of Frank Berry and Audrey O’Reilly’s comedy- drama ‘Teenage Cics’, screened on Irish language channel TG4 and was the reprobate McManus in Abbie Spallen’s impassioned drama, ‘Pumpgirl’, a micro- budget, independently produced feature film, starring Gerard Murphy and Geraldine Hughes, released in 2009.

He fared a little better from 2012, with a small role as Farlen in two episodes of the globally successful ‘Game of Thrones’ and had a supporting credit in writer/director James Erskine’s biographical ‘Shooting for Socrates’ in 2015. Recurring work on television in 2015/16 saw him as Professor Hickey in the BBC NI student angst fest, ‘6Degrees’, shot liberally on location in Belfast. A year later he appeared as RUC Sergeant Gibson in two episodes of Barry Devlin’s WW2 drama, ‘My Mother and Other Strangers, with Ciaran Hinds and Hattie Morahan and set on the shores of Lough Neagh in 1943.

Following another lengthy spell out of the spotlight, he reappeared as ex IRA man turned haulier, Pat Keenan in writer Chris Brandon’s crime thriller, mini-series ‘Bloodlands’ in 2021, with an in-form James Nesbitt as PSNI DCI Tom Brannick.

Peter Ballance’s theatre career, disjointed as it has been, was played out in the main on the Northern Irish stage and despite his proficiency, largely without fuss. On  screen, again localised, though a trifle more regular, he has found little or no opportunity to influence a breakthrough of any note.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-Philadelphia Here I Come!(1994) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-After Easter(1994) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Brilliant Traces(1998) Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast

-Caught RedHanded(2002) Site Specific, Northern Bank, Belfast

-Christmas Eve Can Kill You(2002) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Film

-Sunset Heights(1999)

-With or Without You(1999)

-Laws of Attraction(2004)

TV

-The Killing Gene(2008)

-The Secret(2016)

Ian Beattie

Born Belfast 3rd March 1965

Conspicuous and forceful character player, a QUB law and LAMDA graduate who made an early appearance at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 1993 playing the formidable Petruchio in director Robin Midgley’s production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. Irregular stage work followed and included the title role of Chambers in the Co. Mayo based Yew Tree Theatre Company’s presentation of writer Anne Barrett’s two-handed psychological drama at the Building Theatre, Ballina in 1995.

His screen debut in 1995 saw him in a marginal role as Brian Sweeney in Allan Cubitt’s four part television drama ‘The Hanging Gale’, set in famine ravaged Donegal in 1846, featuring all four McGann brothers and based on an original idea by Joe and Stephen. His big screen introduction in 1996 was also peripheral, credited as Trooper in writer/director Stuart Gordon’s sci-fi adventure/comedy ‘Space Truckers’, filmed at Ardmore Studios, Co. Wicklow and starring Dennis Hopper and Stephen Dorff.

On stage that year at the Arts Theatre, Belfast, he was cast as musician Peter in Willy Russell’s strident, 70s Liverpool set comedy ‘Stags and Hens’ and in another Yew Tree Theatre collaboration in 1997, again at the Building Theatre, he was night club owner Shayman in Max Hafler’s social drama ‘Melting Doves’. He ended the nineties with an also starring part as gang boss Pryke in director Rob Spera’s thriller ‘Stray Bullet’ 1999, filmed in Co. Galway, substituting for Maine, USA. In the Stuart Graham directed ‘Marching On’, Gary Mitchell’s loquacious, orangeism at odds exposition, which premiered at the Lyric in 2000, he was Johnny the visiting Scot, in Belfast for the the 12^th of July parade in a cast including Sean Caffrey and Packy Lee.

In 2004, in only his third film venture, he landed the role of the cycloptic Macedonian general, Antigonus in Oliver Stone’s much maligned, colossally budgeted epic ‘Alexander’, starring a decidedly nonplussed Colin Farrell as the warrior king. This exposure did not lead to a dramatic turn of fortune, as his next screen assignment was a guest role in Pat Shortt’s rural Irish comedy series ‘Kilnaskully’in 2006. However from 2007 until the end of the decade he did manage a number of ancilliary film and television credits, which included David Attenborough’s romantic/ drama ‘Closing the Ring’, 2007 and as Co. Antrim farmer Maurice Magee in director Andre F. Nebe’s N. Ireland produced feelgood comedy/drama ‘The Race’ 2009.

The following year he delivered an idiosyncratic cameo as UDA killer Michael Stone in Philip Martin’s television film, the BAFTA adorned bio-pic ‘Mo’, which also yielded a best actress award for Julie Walters as the insouciant Labour politician Mo Mowlam. At the Waterfront Studio, Belfast that same year he gave an almost script weary performance as drag artist Lillian in Marie Jones’ misfiring post- Troubles drama ‘Rock Doves’. In 2011 in director Michael McDowell’s two –part BBC television docu-drama ‘Brendan Smyth: A Betrayal of Trust’, he was disturbingly convincing as the serially paedophilic Catholic priest of the title.

His 2011 casting as the brutish Ser Meryn Trant, Knight of the Kingsguard in the first series of HBO’s astonishingly successful television fantasy/drama ‘Game of Thrones’, was by far his highest profile role to date, with his recurring character still active after four seasons. He was then mercifully underused in writer and first-time director Nathan Todd’s dialogue heavy and morally suspect 2013 crime drama ‘A Belfast Story’, a micro –budgeted film with little saving grace, notwithstanding a strong cast of Colm Meaney, Stuart Graham and Maggie Cronin.

In early 2014 and despite his ‘Game of Thrones’ credentials, he added only a clutch of functional roles, the more noteworthy being his Tsar Nicholas II in the television docu-drama ‘37 Days’ and as the divorced and now paternal carer Andrew in Gary Mitchell’s quick-fire comedy ‘Demented’, staged at the Lyric’s Naughton Studio, Belfast. In 2015 he broke with type, taking the role of DUP minister McCoubrey in the trite comedy ‘Number 2’s’, a distinctly unfunny effort from the Hole in the Wall team of McDowell, McGarry and Quinn. A preponderance of screen work during 2016/17 provided choice and he seized the moment on at least two occasions. He was  conspicuous  as pathologist Dr. Martin in the television series ‘Prime Suspect 1973’ and as the chief leper Toussaint, in director Michael Noer’s remake of ‘Papillon’, both 2017.

A subsidiary role in two episodes of the crime drama ‘Gangs of London’ in 2020, preceded his supporting credit as Nick in Michael Flatley’s vainglorious romantic thriller ‘Blackbird’, later the same year. Screen credits in 2021/22 were somewhat low-key, but did include four episodes of the Dutch produced,  factual political drama, ‘The Spectacular’ in 2021, appearing as IRA man Corey O’Keeffe, a prominent member of an active service unit in the Netherlands in the late 1980s.  In a career which has offered several opportunities but not yet a breakthrough, Ian Beattie despite his committed efforts is still somewhat short of where he should be.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

– Pinocchio(1994) Arts Theatre, Belfast

– Caught Red Handed(2002) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Fishers of Men(2011) Culturlann McAdam O Fiaich

Film

– Keith Lemon: The Film(2012)

– The Journey(2016)

– Fight the Good Fight(2017)

– Viking Destiny(2017)

– Mandrake(2022)

TV

– Kidnapped(1995)

– The Tudors(2009)

– Line of Duty(2014)

– Blandings(2014)

– Scup(2014)

– Vikings(2015)

– Doctor Who(2017)

– Hayfields(2018)

Lawrence (Larry) Beattie

Born Carrickfergus 16^th May 1928

Died London 9^th September 1972

Capable and erstwhile aspiring leading man, who emerged from Joymount Dramatic Society in Carrickfergus in the late 1940s, joining the revered Group Theatre in Belfast in 1950.

Early appearances that year saw him in Harry Sinton Gibson’s social drama ‘The Square Peg’, alongside another raw recruit, William Millar aka Stephen Boyd, as brothers Dick and George Cunningham. He followed this with a reworking of George Shiels’ 1942 piece ‘Master William’, retitled ‘Slave Drivers’, starring Margaret D’Arcy and directed by R.H.McCandless.

Other notable credits during his Group tenure included Charlie Montgomery in St John Greer Ervine’s comedy ‘My Brother Tom’ in 1952 and as Philip Welch in a revival of Terence Rattigan’s acclaimed romantic drama, ‘The Deep Blue Sea’in 1953, with a laudable Margaret D’Arcy as heroine Heather Collyer.

In 1954, his final year with the company, he played opposite D’Arcy again, this time as Elizabeth Begley’s son Johnny, in the rural drama ‘Mrs Martin’s Man’, John Boyd’s adaptation of St John Greer Ervine’s novel of the same name.

He moved to Canada in the mid-fifties, working with the Crest Theatre in Toronto, The Playhouse in Vineland, Ontario and on CBC television, making his debut in an episode of the anthology series ‘Encounter’, entitled ‘Flight into Danger’, broadcast in April 1956. The cast also included ‘Star Trek’s James Doohan and fading Hollywood star Zachary Scott.

He would appear in a further ten episodes between 1956/1960, with occasional guest roles in series such as ‘Folio’ in 1958 and ‘The Unforseen’ in 1959.

On a visit home the same year, he accepted an invitation from newly appointed Group Theatre artistic director James Ellis, to take the part of Gordon Dalzell in J.B. Priestley’s veritable English comedy ‘When We Are Married’, during the summer season in Bangor, Co Down. It would prove not only the last year of such productions, but the imminent demise of the embattled Group itself.

In February 1960, in the American variant of ‘This is Your Life’, he was invited by NBC to contribute to the celebration of the career of former Group colleague and now international star, Stephen Boyd.

Back in Canada he augmented his television profile with further decent roles in the CBC series ‘First Person’ and ‘Festival’, both 1960. In the latter, appearing for eight additional episodes until 1968.

Now ostensibly wedded to CBC, he continued to work regularly throughout the 1960’s, guesting in series such as ‘Playdate’in 1962 and ‘Forest Rangers’ 1965.

On another excursion to N. Ireland, he took the role of Dr.Dorn in director Christopher Fitz-Simon’s adaptation of Chekhov’s ironic comedy ‘The Seagull’, presented at the newly built and relocated Lyric Theatre, Belfast in October/November 1968. Other performers included O.Z. Whitehead as Sorin and Aileen Harte as Irena Arkadina .

The following year he was in the large cast assembled at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket for director Peter Dews’ production of Peter Luke’s triumphant ‘Hadrian VII, alongside Omagh born Patrick McAlinney and Douglas Rain, the voice of HAL the computer in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

On British television in the early 1970’s, he found any substantive work in short supply, with only a minor credit in the BBC drama series ‘The Brothers’ 1972, worthy of mention.

In September 1972 he fell seriously ill during rehearsals for Dominic Behan’s ‘Armchair Theatre’ play ‘The Folk Singer’, passing away in hospital soon after, aged forty four.

Lawrence Beattie, in a career spanning three decades, had unquestionably a mixed bag of fortune; a talented stage player and a stalwart of Canadian television during the 1960s/1970s, he perhaps at the time of his death fell a little short of his own estimation.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

–The Old Broom(1948) Joymount Dramatic Society tour

-Signs and Wonders(1951) Group Theatre, Belfast

TV

-Kathleen(1956)

-On Camera(1958)

-Startime(1960)

-Quest(1962/63)

-Biography(1970)

Hagan (Jim) Beggs

Born Belfast 19^th March 1937

Died Vancouver 16^th September 2016

Efficacious, Canadian domiciled character actor, who despite a lengthy screen career, which began in 1960, registered only two enduring roles, both in successive television series, running between 1985/1991. He made his uncredited screen debut in an episode of the Canadian version of CBS’ drama, ‘Startime’ in 1960 and for the next two years took a number of walk-on parts in an assortment of CBC productions.

His first credited role came in writer/director Lindsay Shonteff’s routine 1961 western, ‘The Hired Gun’, followed by further bit part television appearances, until his first American small screen sighting, a minor guest role as a sailor in NBC’s one season comedy, ‘The Wackiest Ship in the Army’ in 1965.

He found minimal work on U.S. television during the remainder of the sixties, the most notable, unquestionably his three episode run as Helmsman/Lt. Hansen in the first series of Gene Roddenberry’s fabled ‘Star Trek’, screened by NBC in 1966/67. An occasional collaboration with Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre, afforded him opportunities to test himself in that medium and was prominent in the cast lists of productions such as Brian Friel’s ‘Philadelphia Here I Come’ in 1968 and Brendan Behan’s first play, ‘The Quare Fellow’ in 1971.

Other modest guest appearances on U.S. television at the beginning of the seventies included CBS’ ‘Green Acres’ and ‘Medical Centre’, both 1970. He fared much better in the action feature, ‘The Groundstar Conspiracy’, directed by Lamont Johnson, starring George Peppard and an emerging Michael Sarrazin. Two Canadian produced films in 1975, saw him take a co-starring credit as engaging villain, Leon, in writer /director Boon Collins low-key western ‘Sally Fieldgood & Co’ and as rogue Soviet agent, Kavinsky, in first- time director Lou Lombardo’s political crime drama, ‘Russian Roulette’.

In a break from his screen activities, he returned to the stage, appearing at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 1976, in Joanna M. Glass’ poignant comedy/drama ‘Artichoke’. He was more fortunate in the eighties, working steadily as usual, but with a discernible difference in the quality on offer. In director John Guillermin’s dark and off-beat, 1980 Vancouver set drama, ‘Mr. Patman’ aka ‘Crossover’, he was cast as the anaesthetist, Bateman, opposite James Coburn’s eponymous psychiatric nurse. This was followed by minor supporting roles in two consecutive films, Bob Fosse’s 1983 bio/crime drama ‘Star 80’ and Jeremy Kagan’s family adventure, ‘The Journey of Natty Gann’ in 1985.

That same year he began working on the CBC series ‘Danger Bay’, going on to appear in all 122 episodes as aquarium head, Dr. George Dunbar. His ‘Danger Bay’ commitment notwithstanding, he was still churning out a decent quota of inconspicuous credits on film and television.

He secured an appreciable cameo as a gravedigger in writer/director Rex Bromfield’s knockabout big screen comedy, ‘Home is Where the Hart Is’, released in 1987. In another series, CTV’s 1880’s set western, ‘Bordertown’, which for a period between January 1989 and March 1990, ran in tandem with ‘Danger Bay’, he played town barber, Liam Gleeson, in what was a shoestring budget, but popular family drama with short standalone storylines. When the series ended in 1991, his domestically elevated profile should have yielded more, but instead offered little change. Indeed he spent the nineties largely on U.S. and Canadian television, filling the peripheral roles he was reluctantly accustomed to. The most noteworthy of these were ABC television’s ‘The Surrogate’ in 1995, director Michael Pattinson’s crime thriller ‘The Limbic Region’ aired on ‘Showtime’ and CBS’ mini-series ‘Titanic’, playing first class passenger Aiden Foley, both 1996.

In 1998 with his screen career drawing to a close and work diminishing, the best he could muster was a couple of small scale guest roles on television. Two years later he bowed out as he began, with elementary interest in an episode of Brian Ungar’s sci-fi anthology ‘Hollywood Off-Ramp’, entitled ‘TKO’. In a career spanning forty years, Hagan Beggs proved a proficient utility actor, who by and large, delivered emphatically, an honest days work for an honest days pay.

Other Film and TV credits:

Film

-The Changeling(1980)

-Cyberteens in Love(1994)

-Power Play(1994)

TV

-Encounter(1960/61)

-Playdate(1961/64)

-Festival(1962/64)

-Gunsmoke(1966)

-It Takes a Thief(1968)

-The Name of the Game(1968)

-Here Comes the Brides(1969)

-The Six Million Dollar Man(1974)

-The Amazing Spider-Man(1979)

-A Letter to Three Wives(1985)

-Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun(1986)

-Airwolf(1987)

-Highlander(1995)

-Mercy Point(1998)

-Seven Days(2000)

Elizabeth Begley

Born Carlow 1907
Died Belfast 1993

* Included due to a lifetime contribution to local stage and screen

Authoritative and naturally gifted actor of both stage and screen renown, who for almost twenty years was the indesputable Grande Dame of Ulster Theatre and was at the centre of the hugely productive coterie at large in the Group Theatre Belfast from 1940 to 1959.

Before that she was an occasional member of Richard Hayward’s Belfast Repertory Theatre, appearing in two Hugh Quinn plays at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in 1937, taking the snugly fit role, despite her thirty years, of the Widow McKeown in ‘A Quiet Twelfth’ and later was Miss Shiels in the Falls Road set ‘Collecting the Rent’. In 1938, she joined the newly formed Northern Ireland, Irish Players, which included Joseph Tomelty and Beatrice Duffell amongst it’s numbers and appeared at the Empire Theatre, Belfast in two early offerings presented in June 1939, Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Letter’ and Tomelty’s restructured ‘Barnum Was Right’, originally entitled ‘The Beauty Competition’.

During the forties she built a formidable reputation as a virtuoso character actor with the Group Players in productions such as Joseph Tomelty’s wartime Belfast set ‘Poor Errand’ and his black comedy, the retitled  ‘Right Again Barnum’, both 1943 and Patricia O’Connor’s ‘Select Vestry’ 1945.

In the latter half of the decade she took leading roles in many praiseworthy Group presentations, including her misanthropic Katrine Quinn in Tomelty’s masterwork ‘All Souls’ Night’, Harry Sinton Gibson’s ‘Bannister’s Cafe’, featuring a young Patrick Magee and Cecil Cree’s ‘A Title For Buxey’, all 1949.

Her reputation by this stage was now as big as her repertoire and she saw in the new decade with highly tuned central performances in plays as diverse as Sinton-Gibson’s family at war drama, ‘The Square Peg’ 1950 and the J.R.Mageean/Ruddick Millar quasi-farce ‘Arty’ 1951.

These were heady days indeed for the Group Players, whose nucleus comprised of the most proficient actors then available in Northern Ireland.
The early fifties proved equally as fertile and she endorsed her Queen Of Ulster Theatre status with majesterial characterizations, appearing as Teresa in Patrick Riddell’s ‘The House of Mallon’1952, as Mrs Connor in Michael J. Murphy’s drama ‘Dust Under Our Feet’ 1953 and as Marona in Joseph Tomelty’s ‘Is the Priest At Home?’ 1954. That year also saw her screen debut, simplicity itself as Mrs Clotworthy in a BBC Sunday Night Theatre adaptation of St John Greer Ervine’s enduring comedy, ‘Boyd’s Shop’.

Now vital to the fortunes of the Group Players, she commanded an elevated credit rating in virtually every production she chose to appear in, during what was incredulously the final years of the company.

Memorable performances included her Martha Gomartin in ‘That Woman at Rathard’, Sam Hanna Bell’s adaptation of his novel ‘December Bride’ and the mother Agnes Mahaffy, with Margaret D’Arcy in the title role of St John Greer Ervine’s potent melodrama ‘Martha’, both 1955.

In 1958, an intimation as to the future of the Group as a bona-fide repertory venue was severely tested when writer Gerald McLarnon’s eve of ‘The Twelfth’ observational piece ‘The Bonefire’, was forced to transfer to the Grand Opera House.

It’s perceived politically sensitive content alarmed certain members of an illiberal Board Of Directors and due to the attendant brouhaha, the play perhaps enjoyed more success than it otherwise merited, but did boast an illustrious cast, with Begley herself, James Ellis and Colin Blakely in prominent roles.
The following year the Group’s administrative hierarchy faced another examination, one which would create an artistic impasse too intractable to overcome.

The well documented ‘Over The Bridge’ incident resulted in the disintegration of the Group Players and Begley, who due to other commitments was not in the cast of Sam Thompson’s veritable classic which premiered at the Empire Theatre Belfast in January 1960, saw the door close on a momentous twenty year chapter in her professional life.

A new career on-screen awaited and she was quickly off the mark, making two television appearances in as many months at the end of 1959, with choice roles in ‘Armchair Theatre’ plays, an eye catching performance in ‘Worm in the Bud’ and a masterclass pairing with J.G.Devlin in Tomelty’s ‘A Shilling For the Evil Day’, screened by UTV the day after the official launch of the station on October 31st.

In the early years of the 1960’s she found no shortage of work, particularly on the small screen, where between 1960/62 she guested in several plays and series and included her first film role, an assured little cameo as Mrs Radford in director Jack Cardiff’s estimable interpretation of D.H.Lawrence’s ‘Sons and Lovers’ 1960.

On television she had a high level of exposure on many top rated shows of the day, such as ‘Z Cars’ 1962, ‘No Hiding Place’ 1963 and ‘The Plane Makers’ 1964, ensuring her future, for the short term at the very least, in a rapidly evolving medium.

Notable among small screen successes in the mid to late sixties was her role as Unionist politician’s wife Ethel Kerr in Sam Thompson’s ‘Cemented With Love’ 1965, which also courted controversy, but mercifully was eventually screened intact, with J.G.Devlin and Harold Goldblatt heading a strong cast.
Sadly Sam Thompson died just weeks before broadcast, but no doubt would have been satisfied that common sense ultimately prevailed.

In the seventies there was little change to her television schedule, with a relentless run of co-starring roles during a two year period, the best of which was arguably Dominic Behan’s Home Rule inspired teleplay ‘Carson’s Country’ 1972, in which she featured prominently in a cast including an inevitable J.G.Devlin, Harry Towb and Sam Kydd.

From that point her routine followed the familiar sixties template of guest starring roles in popular television series and the periodic play, with the exception of a regular appearance as Bridget McCarthy in the 1976 urban social drama ‘The Crezz’.

She marked her sixth decade as a professional actor, playing a subsidiary part in writer/director Tony Luraschi’s IRA infused film drama, ‘The Outsider’ 1980 and two years later aged seventy five, she played her final role, a stock-in-trade portrayal as Mrs Duncan in the much lauded ‘Harry’s Game’ 1982.
Elizabeth Begley was undoubtedly one of the most prolific actors to emerge from what is regarded as the golden age of Ulster theatre, a redoubtable and highly efficient player who later brought her guile and composure to a much wider square- eyed audience.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre
– The Old Broom (1944) Group Theatre, Belfast
– The Curse of the Lone Tree(1946) Group Theatre, Belfast
– A Lock of the General’s Hair (1953) Group Theatre, Belfast
– Ballyfarland’s Festival (1953) Group Theatre, Belfast

– April in Assagh (1954) Grand Opera House, Belfast
– Mrs Martin’s Man (1954) Group Theatre, Belfast
– The Farmer Wants a Wife (1955 Group Theatre, Belfast
– A Saint of Little Consequence (1956) Group Theatre, Belfast
– The Country Boy (1959) Group Theatre, Belfast
– The Sparrow’s Fall (1959) Group Theatre, Belfast

– A Pound on Demand (1967) Mermaid Theatre, London

Film
– The Leather Boys (1964)

TV
– Police Surgeon (1960)
– Fifth Floor People (1960)
– Jango (1961)
– Out of the Unknown (1966)
– The Patriot Game (1969)
– The Main Chance (1970)
– The Liver Birds (1971)
– Paul Temple (1971)
– Crown Court (1973)
– The Sweeney (1975)
– The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1979)

Helena Bereen

Born Cullybackey, Co Antrim 1942

Convivial and creditable character actor, with a long history in theatre, which began in Belfast at the beginning of the 1970s, with the established amateur company, the Clarence Players.

Following a number of years nursing at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital during the darkest days of the Troubles, she moved to Ottowa, continuing her profession and resuming part-time acting interest at the city’s Little Theatre, making many appearances there during 1978/80. In November 1978 she was cast as the unequivocal and purposeful Ruth, in Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy drama ‘Table Manners’, the first play in his ‘Norman Conquests’ trilogy. Productions in 1979 included the second of Ayckbourn’s trinity, ‘Living Together’ and Abe Burrow’s ‘Cactus Flower’. In June 1980 she played astute secretary Maggie Coulter in George S. Kaufman’s comedy ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’, directed by Sybil Cooke and for a period her buoyant personality earned her a spell as presenter on CBC.

Returning to Ireland in the early 1980s, with an objective to hone her acting skills, she joined the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. In a significant early role in 1985, she caught the eye as the inebriate Mary Byrne in Synge’s rural comedy ‘The Tinker’s Wedding’, directed by Pierre Campos, for the Sligo based Yew Tree Theatre touring company. Her first screen credit was all too brief, with a modest sighting as Maisy in an episode of Wesley Burrowes’ Wicklow set, agri-soap, ‘Glenroe’ in 1986. Improbably it would be a further fourteen years until her re- emergence, guesting on another long-running RTE soap, ‘Fair City’.

Other stage work in the 1980s offered pivotal roles touring with Yew Tree and included her Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, in ‘Hamlet’ in 1988 and Mother Mercy in Peter Sheridan’s tragicomedy ‘Children of Eve’ in 1989, both directed by Pierre Campos. That same year director Diana Theodores recruited her for the eponymous role in Nicholas Wright’s three-handed family drama ‘Mrs Klein’, which toured successfully, following its world premiere on the National Theatre’s Cottesloe stage in August 1988.

In the 1990s she appeared exclusively in Irish theatre, most notably with Pierre Campos and Yew Tree again, taking a leading part as Old Kate in the premiere of writer Deirdre Ann  Hines’ sympathetic depiction of the travelling community, ‘A Moving Destiny’ staged at the Building Theatre, Ballina, Co Mayo in 1996. Two Belfast stage roles in the late 1990s saw her in sparkling form as matriarch Kate Keller, in director Zoe Seaton’s faithful revival of Arthur Miller’s enduring American tragedy ‘All My Sons’, at the Arts Theatre in April 1997 and in 1999 at the Lyric, was Nurse/Nanny Ann-Marie in Ibsen’s utilitarian drama ‘A Doll’s House’, directed Simon Magill. At the same venue in 2000 she took supporting credits in a brace of contrasting world premieres. In February she played Mrs Tymley in Joseph Crilly’s extolled, pitch-black comedy ‘On McQuillan’s Hill’, a Stephen Wright directed, Tinderbox production, which also featured Niall Cusack and Kieran Lagan. A few months later she was homely grandmother Shirley, in Gary Mithell’s imperfect ‘Marching On’, adequately directed by Stuart Graham, with Sean Caffrey notable as conciliatory paterfamilias, Samuel.

Reunited with Zoe Seaton in 2003, she embarked on a Big Telly tour with Dion Boucicault’s tragic, but superfluous melodrama ‘The Colleen Bawn’, marvellous as the cash-strapped mother Mrs Cregan, opposite Abigail McGibbon as wealthy heiress, Anne Chute. The following year, during the 2004 Christmas season at the Helix Theatre, Dublin, director Chris Wallis cast her as the spiteful and tipsy Mrs Driver, in his efficient adaptation of Mary Norton’s feelgood fantasy ‘The Borrowers’, in a cast including multifaceted Dubliner Jack Walsh.

Among important stage appearances during 2005/2010 was her outstanding performance as Great Aunt Lizzie in the premiere of Daragh Carville’s compelling social drama, ‘Family Plot’, also starring Frankie McCafferty, which opened at the Brian Friel Theatre, Belfast as part of the 2005 Belfast Festival at Queen’s. In 2006 at the Clotworthy Arts Centre, Antrim, she played Mother, in Tom Murphy’s late 1950s, Mayo set comedy drama ‘The Country Boy’and was later offered key roles in two Irish tours in 2007 and 2009. First up was her divorcee Vera, in Marie Jones’ acerbic comedy ‘Women on the Verge of HRT’ and two years later was the obnoxious and pious Aunty Ah, in Marina Carr’s multi- layered reflective lament, ‘Woman and Scarecrow’.

Now in her sixties, she was enjoying relative success across all media, but was finding the inevitable and sometimes undervalued typecasting, particularly on screen, difficult to avoid. This was benignly illustrated in several roles between 2008/11, the most conspicuous being her Mrs Lohan, mother of Stuart Graham’s prison officer Raymond, in director Steve McQueen’s 2008 exposition of the IRA’s 1981 hunger strike, indubitably entitled ‘Hunger’. On the heels of a minor part in Neil McKay’s BAFTA award winning biopic ‘Mo’ in 2010, she fared no better in Terry George’s Oscar winning short ‘The Shore’ in 2011, filmed at Coney Island, Co Down and featuring Ciaran Hinds and Conleth Hill.

Theatre was kinder during the same period, with a number of leading roles in plays such as Bernie McGill’s intriguing musical drama ‘The Haunting of Helena Blunden’, directed by Big Telly’s Zoe Seaton, which toured in 2010. In two subsequent tours in 2012, she played republican matriarch Nora Mullan in Sam Millar’s potent post-troubles drama ‘Brothers in Arms’, which after previews, legitimately premiered at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast. Another Big Telly production followed, in which she gave an arresting performance as anguished widow Maurya, in Synge’s West of Ireland set tragedy ‘Riders to the Sea’.

In writer/director Paul Kennedy’s shoestring budget, quasi-black comedy ‘Made in Belfast’ in 2013, co-produced by Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, she was one of a legion of local actors in a cast headed by Ciaran McMenamin, Lalor Roddy, a delightful turn as recovering sot, Kevy and Bronagh Gallagher. At the Mac Theatre, Belfast in 2014, in the premiere of Jimmy McAleavey’s disturbing social drama, ‘Unhome’, she played complaisant grandmother Cait, alongside Claire McMahon and Miche Doherty, all benefiting from the sensitive direction of Tinderbox Theatre Company’s Mick Duke.

On screen in 2016, in Mark Cousins’ intimate and surreal docupoem ‘I Am Belfast’, she was ideal as the titular, narrator/guide and ghostly embodiment of the city so cherished by a eulogistic Cousins. The film was further sustained in no short measure, by an expertly arranged score from another hometown boy, David Holmes.

In 2018/19 her playing constraints were revealed to her advantage on stage and screen with two faultless performances. In a touring revival of Brian Friel’s poignant ‘Lovers: Winners and Losers’, she excelled as bedridden harridan Mrs Wilson, with impressive direction by Prime Cut Production’s Emma Jordan. On screen in 2019 she proved indefectible as the patronising and prudish Mother Superior, in first-time writer/director Aislinn Clarke’s limited budget, Irish produced horror film, ‘The Devil’s Doorway’, co-starring an equally proficient Lalor Roddy.

Helena Bereen effectively began her professional career in early middle age, developing in quick time into a confident and reliable player, principally on stage, where she has established a name in the niche market of mature women.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

– Dance of the Dinosaurs(1995) Punch Theatre, Galway

– The Weather Watchers(2006) Tour

– The End of the Beginning(2008) Tour

– Black Milk(2009) Brian Friel Theatre, Belfast

TV

– The Clinic(2005)

– A Year of Greater Love(2012)

– Millie Inbetween(2017)

Adam Best

Born Donaghadee 16^th November 1983

Theatrically productive character player, a Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama graduate in 2004, who made his legitimate stage debut as a 15 year-old in 1998. Taking various roles, he appeared in Frank McGuinness’translation of Bertolt Brecht’s morality tale, ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’, an Ulster Youth Theatre production, directed by David Grant and presented at the Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen and Lyric Theatre, Belfast.

Within a few months of his graduation in 2004, he found himself somewhat fortuitously on the West End stage. Cast as the Ghost of Joseph Swane, he played opposite Holly Hunter in Marina Carr’s surreal re-working of Euripedes’ ‘Medea’, set in the Irish Midlands and staged at Wyndham’s Theatre in December of that year. 2004 also saw his first screen appearance, playing Young David Kelman in an episode of the crime drama series ‘Silent Witness’, starring Co. Derry born Amanda Burton.

An opportunity to impress on a national level came in May 2005 with the role of medical student Matt Parker in the long running television series ‘Holby City’, appearing in 45 episodes across three seasons until 2007. However subsequent screen work did not offer any significant change until his starring credit as hapless baker P.J. Johnson in director Colin McIvor’s independently produced , Northern Irish film comedy ‘Cup Cake’ in 2010. He then undertook a UK tour during May/June 2010 with the Original Theatre Company, as waggish cook Private Mason in R.C. Sherriff’s powerful WW1 set ‘Journey’s End’. In David Watson’s wrap-around experimental play ‘Pieces of Vincent’, at the Arcola Theatre, London in September 2010, he played to great effect, the eponymous, peripatetic and doomed pivotal character in a cast which also featured an underworked Dearbhla Molloy.

He enjoyed a flurry of noteworthy stage work from 2012, which included his leading role as The Actor in Stephen Mallatratt’s stripped down adaptation of Susan Hill’s gothic horror story ‘The Woman in Black’, ensconced at the Fortune Theatre, London since 1989.

He was the journalist Horster in Ibsen’s ‘Public Enemy’, aka ‘An Enemy of the People’ at the Young Vic in 2013. He undertook an extensive tour later that year in Chris Hannan’s mighty translation of Dostoevsky’s psychological epic, ‘Crime and Punishment’, for which he won a deserved Theatre Critics Award for his cogent performance as chief protagonist Raskolnikov.

A trio of testing roles in 2014 saw him first as the profligate James Tyrone Junior in Eugene O’Neill’s Homeric, autobiographical classic ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’, performed at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. He later played Western Front soldier Barney Bagnal in Sean O’Casey’s neglected expressionist play ‘The Silver Tassie’, a grand scale National Theatre production at the Lyttleton, appropriately replete with a largely Irish cast. Artistic director Dominic Hill then recruited him for his noteworthy, modern dress presentation of Hamlet’ at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, doubling up as Laertes/Rosencrantz, with Brian Ferguson as the tortured Danish prince.

Following his award -winning solo performance in Transport Theatre’s production of Douglas Rintoul’s ‘Elegy’ at the Vaults, London in February 2015, he took the role of ex RAF pilot Jackie Jackson in Terrence Rattigan’s early 1950’s London set melodrama ‘The Deep Blue Sea’, which opened in June of that year at the Watermill, Newbury. He ended 2015 touring to mixed reviews in another Rattigan play, ‘Flare Path’, again as an airman, the winsome Count Skriczevinsky, an Original Theatre Company production, directed by Justin Audibert.

Further stage appearances in 2016 included a supporting credit in Zinnie Harris’ exemplary trilogy, ‘This Restless House’, a reimagining of Aeschylus’ Greek tragedy ‘The Oristeia’, staged at the Citizens Theatre and as incidental soldier Captain Brennan in Sean O’Casey’s withering critique of the Easter Rising, ‘The Plough and the Stars’, a National Theatre production on the Lyttleton stage, co-directed by Jeremy Herrin and Howard Davies.

He returned to the National in 2017, this time at the Olivier, playing the sexually ambiguous ship’s captain Antonio in director Simon Godwin’s cross –gendered adaptation of Shakespeare’s fast moving romantic comedy ‘Twelfth Night’, featuring a scintillating Tamsin Greig as the obverse Malvolia. On the heels of his multiple roles in Tanika Gupta’s ‘Lions and Tigers’ at Shakespeare’s Globe, also in 2017, he toured from October that year with director Ivo Van Hove’s laudable, contemporary dress production of ‘Hedda Gabler’. Convincing as the astute Judge Brack, he appeared opposite Lizzy Watts as the wildly self-serving protagonist. In theatre again he played confidant Le Bret to the titular James McAvoy, in a decidedly rejigged ‘Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Jamie Lloyd at the Playhouse, London in 2019. Adam Best is an unequivocal stage actor, whose ability has been tested across the genres to general approbation and who, with the exception of one screen role, has found that medium problematic and unavailing.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-Truckstop(2007) Tour

-Northern Star(2011) Finborough Theatre, London

-The Golden Dragon(2011)Tour

-Our Country’s Good(2012) Tour

-The Girl on the Train(2018) West Yorkshire Playhouse

-Medicine(2018) Hope Theatre, London

-The Beauty Queen of Leenane(2021) Minerva Theatre, Chichester

Film

-Blooded(2011)

TV

-The Catherine Tate Show(2007)

-The Bill(2009)

-Waking The Dead(2009)

-Doctors(2017)

Pat Bishop

Born Belfast 13th June 1946
Died Melbourne 28th March 2000

Exclusively Australian film and television focused character actor, who made her professional debut as Hazel Reeves in an episode of ABC’s Customs Police series, ‘Contrabandits’ in 1968, starring English actor Dennis Quilley. A year later she took a guest role in the top rated Melbourne based police drama series ‘Homicide’ and worked mainly in television in the seventies. She created sufficient interest for director Bruce Beresford to cast her as Jenny in his critically acclaimed ‘Don’s Party’ 1976, in which her study of a disaffected wife, won her best actress in the 1977 Australian Film Awards. A helter skelter relationship with acclaimed character player Bill Hunter, ended just seventeen days into their marriage in 1976. Hunter’s volatile hard drinking image it seems, knew no bounds. Pat Bishop was not fortunate enough to cash in on the success of ‘Don’s Party’, indeed she took no part in the international acclaimation of Australian cinema in the late seventies and early eighties.

In the first season of the well travelled women’s prison soap, ‘Prisoner (Cell Block H)’1979, she played gangster’s moll Victoria McNally and between 1982 and 1984 appeared in another television series, ‘A Country Practice’. Six years after the well deserved praise for her performance in ‘Don’s Party’, her big screen persona remained static, managing only two small roles in ‘Women of Valour’ and ‘Scorpion’, both 1986. She did fill the void with steady television work, including appearances in two mini- series ‘Paperman’ 1990 and ‘Brides of Christ’ 1991. Around the same time she was active in theatre, appearing in ‘Hate’ at Melbourne’s Victorian Arts Centre in 1989 and ‘Diving for Pearls’ at Belvoir Street Players Theatre in Sydney in 1991. She was still foraging away,existing on film and television scraps in the late nineties with minor roles in ‘Water Rats’1996, ‘Blue Heelers’1998 and on the big screen in writer/director Christina Andreef ‘s comedy drama ‘Soft Fruit’1999.

Pat Bishop had her stab at film stardom but it was so fleeting she failed to grasp it and choosing to stay within the antipodean laager, ultimately proved detrimental to any hope she had of international fame.

Other Film and TV credits:

Film
– The Right Hand Man(1987).

TV
– Cat Walk(1972),

– Man of Letters(1984),

– Cassidy(1989),

– Correlli (1995),

– All Saints (1999)

Colin Blakely

Born Bangor, Co. Down 23rd September 1931
Died London 7th May 1987

Gregarious and intuitive character player who was smitten from his first hesitant steps in amateur dramatics, performing with Bangor Drama Club at the local Legion Hall during the early fifties. This led to a professional acting job with The Children’s Touring Theatre of Gwent in Wales, for a short period in 1957.

He returned home in late spring of 1957 to join the Ulster Group Theatre’s summer season at the Little Theatre, Bangor, making his debut there as Dick McArdle in Stanley Haughton’s family drama ‘The Master of the House’. In an early appearance at the Group in October 1957 he appeared as Mr Van Daan in Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’. In 1958 he played Kevin McAllinden in  Gerard McLarnon’s controversial piece ‘The Bonefire’, a Group production, but staged at the Grand Opera House, Belfast.

In 1959, his final year with the soon to be dissolved Group Players, he appeared in Patricia O’Connor’s rural Irish melodrama ‘The Sparrow’s Fall’ and the comedy ‘Sailor Beware’, before leaving for London, where later that year he had two walk on parts at the Royal Court. His appearances as second roughfellow in Sean O’Casey’s ‘Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy’ and his pugnacious collier in John Arden’s ‘Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance’ were inconsequential, but his big personality was evidently making an impression. His screen debut in 1960, credited as John Dempsey, was in the television series ‘On Trial’ and the same year took a minor role in director Karel Reisz’s brilliant contribution to British angst cinema, ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’. In what was an industrious period, he was then given a supporting credit as Ted, the warehouse foreman, in writer Alun Owen’s ‘Armchair Theatre’ television play, ‘Lena, O My Lena’, starring Billie Whitelaw and Peter McEnery.

In a two year period from 1961, his stage potential was given credence when he joined the RSC and was immediately into the fray with small parts in ‘Othello’ and ‘As You Like it’, both 1961. He put down a significant marker in his theatre career when he was asked to join the large theatre ensemble, gathered by newly appointed artistic director Laurence Olivier, for the inaugural National Theatre production of ‘Hamlet’, which was presented at the Old Vic in 1963. Later that year with the National Theatre, he pressed home his stage ambitions with another sound performance, this time in a leading role as Kite in George Farquhar’s ‘The Recruiting Officer’. He was now more recognisable on screen, most notably in another piece of angry northern cinema, Lyndsay Anderson’s ‘This Sporting Life’1963, as a rugby league teammate of Richard Harris.

Now a core member of the National Theatre Company, he appeared in many prestigious productions from 1964 to 1966, including ‘Andorra’, ‘Hobson’s Choice’, Peter Shaffer’s ‘Royal Hunt of the Sun’ all 1964 and ‘Juno and the Paycock’ 1966. That same year he was cast as Sir Thomas More’s servant Matthew in director Fred Zinneman’s film classic, ‘A Man for all Seasons’ and did not look uncomfortable as the Russian President in the Galton and Simpson farce ‘The Spy with the Cold Nose’.

From this point he stepped back from his frenetic early sixties stage activity and concentrated on a film and television career, which although prolific, produced only a few roles worthy of mention. He was Smokey Pickles, childhood friend of Albert Finney’s successful writer ‘Charlie Bubbles’, in the Finney directed film of the same name in 1967 and the following year had an also starring role in an adequate film version of Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Decline and Fall of a Bird Watcher’.
In an inspired piece of casting, he played Jesus Christ in Dennis Potter’s television play, ‘Son of Man, broadcast in 1969, with just a little reference to type, his characterization was more gruff than grace, but memorable for all that.

Following his role as Dr Watson in Billy Wilder’s ‘The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes’ in 1970, he returned to theatre, appearing at the Royal Court in ‘Uncle Vanya’, 1970 and had prominent roles in two Harold Pinter plays at the Aldwych in 1971. He played Stott in ‘The Basement’ and was superlative as Deeley in ‘Old Times’, which featured theatre giants Dorothy Tutin and Vivien Merchant. That year also saw him excel in the Abbey Theatre’s production of Tom Murphy’s ‘ The morning After Optimism’, in a cast which included Belfast born stage and screen actor Eithne Dunne.

Between 1972 and 1974 he had no problem finding work on screen, but only a handful of projects merited critical appraisal with the best of his efforts arguably in the title role of the television play ‘Peer Gynt’1972, co-starring in director Jack Gold’s black comedy film ‘The National Health’ 1973, and the not too insubstantial part of Mr. Hardman in the internationally successful ‘Murder on the Orient Express’1974. Sandwiched in between, he produced two excellent performances as Vukhow in Barry Collin’s ‘Judgement’ at the Royal Court and Torvald in Ibsen’s ‘A Dolls House ‘ at the Criterion Theatre, both 1973. His diverse role playing was tested in a variety of films in the latter half of the seventies; he played Siefried Farnon in ‘It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet’1975, Frank Strane in ‘Equus’1977, and Tamil in ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’1979.

In yet another West End appearance he was an effortless Joe Keller in Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons’ at the Wyndhams Theatre in 1981 and the following year appeared in his second Agatha Christie whodunnit, as Sir Horace Blatt in the less successful film adaptation of ‘Evil Under the Sun’. During the last five years of his screen career he accepted roles which forced his range even wider. He was a capricious Stalin in the TV play ‘Red Monarch’1983, a bumptious uniformed Police Chief Superintendent Forbes in the quirky television series, ‘The Beiderbecke Affair’1985, and in a quite superb study of violence and evil, played McCann in Pinter’s televised play, ‘The Birthday Party’1986. Also that year in his penultimate television role he produced an almighty performance as old colonial George Beesley, adrift in the diminishing world of white Rhodesia, in ‘Drums Along Balmoral Drive’.

In his last screen appearance he played Dr. Salter in John Mortimer’s television mini-series ‘Paradise Postponed’ broadcast in October 1986 and though in obvious ill health, he gave a nightly display of exceptional fortitude in Alan Ayckbourne’s award winning ‘ A Chorus of Disapproval’, at the Lyric Theatre London, steering the play through it’s nine month run from June 1986 until march 1987. Colin Blakely came as close to the model of complete actor as it is possible to be, from his humble beginnings on stage at the Legion Theatre Bangor, to the brilliant years of the RSC and The National Theatre, stopping frequently along the way to demonstrate his dexterity on film and television and was as enthusiastic at the end as he was at the beginning.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre
– The Country Boy (1959) Group Theatre, Belfast

– A Moon For the Misbegotten(1960) Arts Theatre Club, London

– The Fire Raisers(1961) Royal Court, London

– Richard III (1963) RST, Stratford
– The Crucible (1965) NT Olivier, London

– Volpone(1968) NT Old Vic, London

– Just Between Ourselves (1977) Queen’s Theatre, London

– Lovers Dancing(1983) Albery Theatre, London

– Other Places(1984) Duchess Theatre, London

Film
– Never Put It In Writing (1964)

– Alfred the Great (1969)
– Young Winston (1972)

– Galileo (1975)

– Equus (1977)

– The Dogs of War (1981)

TV
– St. Joan (1968)

– The Challengers (1972)

– Love Among The Ruins (1975)
– King Lear (1984)

– The Father (1985)

Stephen Boyd (William Millar)

Born Whitehouse, Belfast 4th July 1931
Died Los Angeles 2nd June 1977

Rugged and assertive leading man, a short term matinee idol in the era of hunk and dimples, whose dalliance with Hollywood stardom was all too brief.
He began his acting career with the Ulster Group Players, making his debut as a gunman in the 1950 production of ‘Juno and the Paycock’ and appeared later that year in the more central role of George Cunningham, in Harry Sinton Gibson’s ‘The Square Peg’. Boyd, still only nineteen made several more appearances on the Group stage in early 1951, including,’ What’s Bred in the Bone ‘and ‘Fiddler’s Folly’ both 1951. That same year principle actor and writer Joseph Tomelty pencilled him in for a limited dialogue role as a policeman in his hit radio comedy series, ‘The McCooeys’, then in its third year of broadcast.

In the late summer of 1951 he accepted an invitation by Tyrone Guthrie to join his Ulster ensemble in London, as an understudy in the forthcoming Festival of Britain presentation of George Shiel’s ‘The Passing Day’ at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. Boyd remained in London after the closure of the play, taking work where he could find it and whilst working as a doorman at the Odeon Leicester Square, he had a chance meeting with esteemed actor Michael Redgrave, which subsequently led to an audition with the Windsor Repertory Company in early 1952. In another stroke of good luck some months later, he was chosen by the Arts Council of Great Britain for the post of actor and part time director with the midland Theatre Company. This in turn led to a contract with the BBC, where during the next two years he was to appear in a number of television plays. In 1953 he made his uncredited film debut in director Cy Endfield’s crime drama ‘The Limping Man’ and in 1955 had a supporting role as Albert O’Shannon in J. Lee Thompson’s feelgood comedy ‘An Alligator named Daisy’.

During the middle years of the fifties he saw his name rise steadily in the credit lists of a clutch of unexceptional British films including ‘A Hill in Korea’ and ‘The Man Who Never Was’, both 1956, landing his first leading role as Davie in the WW2 drama ‘Seven Thunders’, 1957. The following year in his first Hollywood based film for his studio 20th Century Fox, he took second billing behind Gregory Peck in Henry King’s western ‘The Bravados’. After two further contract projects, he was loaned to MGM for what should have been a career defining role as Mesalla in director William Wyler’s 1959 blockbuster ‘Ben Hur’. Taking advantage of the international success of the film, his employers Fox, cast him as Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in what retrospectively proved a pivotal period in his career. Shooting in England was delayed for months due to Taylor’s ill health and several actors including Boyd were forced to honour other contractual commitments. Any momentum created by ‘Ben Hur’ had now screeched to a halt and it was almost two years later when he reappeared in the relatively low key comedy drama ‘The Big Gamble’1961.

His next big disappointment following the ‘Cleopatra’ fiasco was his shortlisting and subsequent failure to land the role of James Bond in ‘Dr. No’1962 and for the next three years he languished in a hotchpotch of small budget Hollywood films, television and an Italian made Gina Lollobrigida vehicle, ‘Venere Imperiale’1963. In 1964 he returned to the Roman epic genre, as Livius in Anthony Mann’s ‘The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire’ and, although more lavish and expansive than ‘Ben Hur’ it was not a box office success. It seemed that audiences were tiring of long historical dramas.

This film marked the point of Stephen Boyd’s decline and ironically yet another toga clad extravaganza played a major part in the proceedings. For the rest of the sixties his output was frustratingly mundane saved only by the novelty value of ‘Fantastic Voyage’1966. He played Grant, the leader of a group of doctors reduced in size to microscopic dots and injected with their submarine into the blood stream of a brilliant scientist in an attempt to save his life. In the early to mid-seventies he accepted more film assignments in Europe, working in Spain, Italy and Germany and unsurprisingly found these obscure ventures were not platforms for career advancement.
In his last British film, he gave a more than believable performance, employing his native accent to boot as London gangland Boss Vic, in Michael Apted’s crime drama ‘The Squeeze’1977.

He died that year of a massive heart attack whilst playing golf near his home in Northridge, California. He was 46 years old. Stephen Boyd experienced misfortune at crucial points in his professional life which dictated the shape of his career post ‘Ben Hur’. He was a textbook example of the contract leading man, who reluctantly accepted the mediocre in his pursuit of international acclaim, which regretfully visited him all too infrequently.

Other Film and TV credits:

Film
– Seven Waves Away (1957)
– Woman Obsessed (1959)
– The Oscar (1966)
– Shalako (1968)

TV
– Carter’s Army (1970)
– The Hands of Cormac Joyce (1972)
– The Lives of Jenny Doran (1975)

Kenneth Branagh

Born Belfast 10th December 1960

Actor/director/writer, at one time prince of all he surveyed, darling of the London stage and beyond. He was the anointed successor to Lord Olivier’s thespian kingdom, but after a decade of ducking the flying accolades, he went into self imposed exile from theatre, concentrating instead on film and television projects.

The high water mark of previous theatrical giants was perhaps pressure he did not need and effectively drew the curtain on his stage career, which was to last almost ten years.

He was a very young member of RADA, entering the venerable doors at eighteen years old and whilst there made his first film appearance, a fleeting glimpse credited as Artist in director Hugh Hudson’s Academy Award winning ‘ Chariots Of Fire ‘ 1981. Earlier that year in his television debut he played schizophrenic, Robert Clyde Moffat in the hospital set mini- series ‘Maybury’. A year later he took a months leave of absence from his last term at RADA to take the title role in the first of Graham Reid’s televised trilogy of   ‘Billy’ plays, ‘Too Late to Talk to Billy’, Belfast set and with an ensemble of local actors, he was made to measure, accent and all.

He went on to complete the set in 1983 and 1984 and later in 1987 he reprised the role in the final added instalment, ‘Lorna’ with Brid Brennan this time in the title role. He made his professional stage debut in 1982 just six weeks after leaving RADA, appearing as Tommy Judd in writer Julian Mitchell’s ‘Another Country’, at the Queen’s Theatre, London, which won him The Society of Western Theatre’s ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ award.

Joining the RSC at Stratford in 1984, he became the youngest actor in it’s history to play Henry V, a distinction he was to find created more baggage than he imagined. Other major work with the company that year included ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ and thus began the whispering of his name as a serious heir to Geilgud and Olivier. In 1985 he starred in his own play ‘ Tell Me Honestly’, presented at the Donmar Warehouse and Almeida Theatre and appeared in his third big screen production, this time in a starring role in Alan Plater’s ‘ Coming Through ‘, playing a more than credible D. H. Lawrence. He left the RSC in 1985 following a short run in Jonathan Gem’s ‘ Doom Doom Doom Doom ‘ at the Almeida Theatre, London and together with fellow actor David Parfitt created an independent company, Kenneth Branagh Ltd. The first production in which he also starred and directed was ‘Romeo and Juliet’, staged at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in August 1986.

A name change in 1987  to the Renaissance Theatre Company was given a mighty endorsement with the involvement of actors including Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, and Richard Briers, who were all to appear in his subsequent film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. His new company’s first presentation  ‘Public Enemy’, a rather wayward piece of theatre noir which he also wrote, was a box office disaster and it was only a life saving cash injection and the moderate success of a subsequent production, ‘ Twelfth Night’, at The Riverside Studios, London later in 1987 that saved the day. He was also busy on screen that year with two feature films, director Pat O’Connor’s 1920s Yorkshire set, ‘A Month in the Country’ and writer/director Clare Peploe’s  ‘High Season’. On television he played Thomas Mendip in an adaptation of Christopher Fry’s 15th century romantic comedy  ‘ The Lady’s Not For Burning’ and appeared with future wife Emma Thompson in James Cellan Jones’ excellent mini-series ‘Fortunes of War’.

Working with Emma Thompson again in 1989, he gave a riveting performance as anti-hero Jimmy Porter in a televised Renaissance co-production of John Osborne’s kitchen sink classic ‘ Look Back In Anger ‘. The stage version also directed by Judi Dench, undertook a short tour, beginning at the Grand Opera House, Belfast and ending at the Lyric Theatre, London. After a period of intense financial wrangling which had been ongoing since 1988, he was finally given the green light to realise a long cherished ambition. His focus now would be to bridge a gap of forty five years and emulate Olivier’s finest hour with what would be only the second big screen version of ‘ Henry V ‘. Released in November 1989 to huge international acclaim, Branagh was rewarded for his efforts with a Bafta Best Director Award and Oscar nominations for Best Actor and  Director.  This, the first of his projected Shakespearian productions was the materialising of his master plan of making the bard’s work available to a worldwide audience.

His final stage appearances with Renaissance before his voluntary ‘retirement’, were in ‘ Uncle Vanya ‘ at the Lyric Theatre, London in 1991 and ‘ Coriolanus ‘ at the Chichester Festival in 1992. He did as was expected mark his farewell to the RSC with another characterization of  Hamlet, this time Edwardian themed, staged at the Barbican Theatre, London in 1992/93. In the years that followed he concentrated almost entirely on  film making, acting in and directing ‘Peter’s Friends’ 1992, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ 1993, ‘Frankenstein’1994, ‘Hamlet’1996 and ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ 2000.

Following a leading credit in director Frank Pierson’s WW2 television drama ‘ Conspiracy ‘ in 2001, he made his much awaited return to theatre in the title role of ‘Richard III ‘ at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield in 2002 and, although absent for almost a decade, his performance put paid to any doubters of his enormous stage presence.

Other notable film roles included  his controlling and rather insultingly titled, Chief Protector Of Aborigines, A.O. Neville in ‘ Rabbit Proof Fence ‘ and the hapless Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in ‘ Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets ‘, both 2002. In 2007 he turned director again with a remake of Anthony Shaffer’s ‘ Sleuth ‘, starring Michael Caine in a role reversal from the 1972 original and Jude Law. A year later he produced another fine example of stage proficiency, in the title role of Michael Grandage’s superior translation of Chekhov’s ‘Ivanov’ at the Donmar Warehouse, widely recognised as being at least on a level with his eighties triumphs.

That year also saw him on top form as Henning Mankell’s beleaguered Swedish detective Kurt Wallander, in the award winning BBC series ‘Wallander’, creating a more dog-eared character than perhaps even the writer had imagined. He was in no particular rush to increase his workload on either stage or screen as he entered his fiftieth year, carefully identifying perhaps, projects of interest. He was razor sharp in his cameo as arch- conservative minister Sir Alistair Dormandy, in Richard Curtis’ pirate radio inspired comedy ‘ The Boat That Rocked ‘ 2009. In 2011 he at last assumed the name at least of Laurence Olivier in director Simon Curtis’ ‘ My Week With Marilyn ‘, an account it seems of the fraught atmosphere engendered during the filming of Olivier’s ‘ The Prince And The Showgirl ‘ at Pinewood Studios in 1957. In a rare Belfast stage appearance, he demonstrated his extraordinary flexibility with a madcap performance as the hitman Ralph opposite Rob Brydon in Sean Foley’s ‘ The Painkiller ‘, an adaptation of the Francis Veber farce ‘ Le Contrat ‘, presented at the rebuilt Lyric Theatre in September 2011.

In late 2015 he established the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company, which took up residence at the Garrick Theatre, London for a year long season of plays, opening with The Winter’s Tale’ and closing with John Osborne’s ‘The Entertainer’. In 2017 he was the stoic Commander Bolton in writer/director Christopher Nolan’s epic, ‘Dunkirk’, then directed and starred in writer Michael Green’s adaptation of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, replete with the customary stellar cast, headed by Branagh, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer Derek Jacobi and Willem Dafoe. A bespoke role in Ben Elton’s presumptive biopic ‘All Is True’ in 2019, at least afforded him the opportunity to play the Bard in fractious retirement, to his own direction and ably supported by Judi Dench as his long suffering wife, Anne Hathaway. He directed himself again in 2022, reunited with the character of Poirot and the bountiful moustache from ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ in 2017, in a sweeping remake of Agatha Christie’s ‘Death on the Nile’, co-starring Annette Bening and Gal Gadot.

Branagh, whose persona was theatrically contrived in his early years, developed into a remarkably inventive player, with many major directing credits and from time to time has taken on the long neglected role of fabled actor/manager.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre
– The Madness (1983) Upstream Theatre, London
– Golden Girls (1984) RSC Other Place, Stratford

– Semi-Monde(1987) Royalty Theatre, London
– Edmond (2003) NT Olivier Theatre, London

Film
– Dead Again (1991)
– The Ginger Bread Man (1998)
– How To Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog (2000)

– Five Children And It(2004)
– Valkyrie (2008)

– Tenet(2020)

TV
– To The Lighthouse (1983)
– Boy In The Bush (1984)
– Shadow of a Gunman (1995)
– Warm Springs (2005)

– Upstart Crow(2018)

Pat Brannigan

Born Belfast 30^th September 1938

Died Dublin 24^th May 2014

All purpose and dexterous repertory player, erstwhile director and QUB graduate, who began and ended his prodigious career with Pearse and Mary O’Malley’s Lyric Theatre, making his debut on their bijou stage, then based in Derryvolgie Avenue, Belfast. He was quickly into his stride with a string of credits, most notably as Henry of Bolingbroke aka King Henry IV, in ‘The Tragedy of King Richard II’ in 1967, which also featured nineteen year-old Newry born, Gerard Murphy.

In the opening production at the newly built theatre in Ridgeway Street, Belfast in October 1968, he was credited with relatively minor roles in the second and fourth short plays of W.B. Yeats’ ‘The Cuchulain Cycle’, a collection of stories of the mythological hero of Ulster, appropriately directed by the founding mother Mary O’Malley.

In early 1969 he appeared as Spanish soldier Vasca, in Peter Shaffer’s sprawling epic ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun’, depicting the 1530 conquest of Peru, co-directed by Sam McCready and Denis Smyth. In June of that year he was cast as the young tinker Carthalawn, in J.B.Keane’s Kerry set tragedy ‘Sive’ and in August, was given his first directorial role, with the third play of Sean O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy, ‘Juno and the Paycock’.

A year later and now very much an established Lyric Player, he was to experience in full throttle, the all-embracing diversity of a busy repertory actor. In January 1970 in O’Casey’s 1916 Rising tragedy, ‘The Plough and the Stars’, he took the central role of doomed Irish patriot Jack Clitheroe, with Louis Rolston as the pitiable Peter Flynn. Later in May of that year, he played the villainous Don John in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and then took the pivotal role of Peter Boyle in a revival of Sam Thompson’s potent Belfast shipyard exposition ‘Over the Bridge’.

In August 1970 he was given the opportunity to direct another O’Casey play, this time, the first of the trilogy, ‘The Shadow of a Gunman’ with a strong cast including Jack McQuoid and Mark Mulholland as IRA man Mr Maguire. At the end of that industrious year he proved convincing as the feckless dreamer ‘Peer Gynt’, in director Mary McCracken’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s folklore steeped Norwegian classic, first staged at Derryvolgie Avenue in 1957.

A prolific period during 1971/72, saw him register a veritable welter of appearances. Most noteworthy were his Christy Mahon in ‘The Heart’s A Wonder’, a musical adaptation of ‘The Playboy of the Western World’, as Gerard Donellan in John Boyd’s ‘The Flats’ and as Harry Heegan in O’Casey’s WW1 themed ‘The Silver Tassie’, all 1971.

1972 was equally productive with several admirable performances, not least of which was his role as the idealistic union activist Ayamonn Breydon, in O’Casey’s powerful drama ‘Red Roses for Me’, set against the Irish railway strike of 1911. He followed this with roles as Jim McCann in John Boyd’s ‘The Farm’ and a further directing project, Wilson John Haire’s ‘Within the Shadows’, depicting the fears of a mixed religion family in the throes of unfolding civil unrest in 1969 Belfast.

Significant other work in 1973/74 included yet another O’Casey piece, ‘Purple Dust’, described superfluously as a wayward comedy, it made its Irish professional debut at the Lyric in April 1973, directed by Tomas MacAnna. An ensemble credit in O’Casey’s early 1930’s set, depression driven, morality play ‘Within the Gates’, directed by Jim Sheridan, preceded his multiple roles in John Boyd’s localised, contemporary social drama ‘Guests’, both 1974.

His production rate slowed a degree in the mid to late seventies, but there were still opportunities to stretch his tried and tested range. His peripheral sighting as a priest in James Plunkett’s stirring tale of the 1913 Dublin lockout, ‘The Risen People’, staged in 1976, was eclipsed by a stellar cast headed by Stella McCusker, Des McAleer and purposeful debutant, Liam Neeson. Later in 1976 he was plausible as the Philadelphian Ben Burton, in Brian Friel’s well-travelled, bittersweet comedy ‘Philadelphia Here I Come!’, which was quickly followed with a co-starring role as Welsh rebel leader Owen Glendower, in director Ian Lindsay’s adaptation of ‘Henry V1, Part 1’.

A self enforced semi-retirement at the end of the seventies, saw his output reduced to a short term run of yearly guest appearances. The majority of these were incidental, with the exception of his dual roles as Doctor/RUC Inspector in Eugene McCabe’s ‘Heritage’, Tommy McArdle’s fusion of the writer’s two television plays ‘Cancer’ and ‘Heritage’, which premiered at the Lyric in November 1980.

His sole contribution to screen was a supporting role in the small- scale independent film ‘It’s Handy When People Don’t Die’ 1980, set in Wexford during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in a cast which included Lyric colleague Catherine Gibson.

On his premature retirement from the stage in the early eighties, he concentrated his efforts on teaching, a trained educator he taught English, Irish and of course drama at a Belfast College until 1999. Pat Brannigan was by and large a repertory everyman, a Sean O’Casey devotee, who ran the gamut of credits in a mountain of productions, in what became his spiritual home, the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.

Other Theatre Credits:

-Words Upon the Window Pane(1967)

-John Bull’s Other Island(1971)

-King of the Castle(1971)

-The Countless Cathleen(1972)

-Man of La Mancha(1972)

-Famine(1973)

-We Do It For Love(1975)

-The Street(1977)

-Facing North(1979)

-My Silver Bird(1981)

(All Lyric Theatre, Belfast)

Brid Brennan

Born Belfast 1955

Plaintive but self assured player, primarily of stage renown, whose theatrical portfolio covers most of the great plays and companies of these islands. She was with the National Student Theatre Company in 1977, when cast as Mom in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival production of  Brian Dunnigan’s ‘The Death of Private Kowalski’, presented in the city’s Cathedral Hall. Active in theatre in Dublin in 1978, she appeared in ‘Says I, Says She’ at the Project Arts, ‘The Ladies’ at the Eblana and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ at the Gaeity.

In 1979 she joined The Moving Theatre Company, appearing in the Dublin Theatre Festival production of ‘Legs Eleven’ and by 1981 had appeared in two films, making her debut as a lady- in- waiting in John Boorman’s lavish ‘Excalibur’1981, shot on location in Co.Wicklow. This was followed later that year with an also-starring role in Pat O’Connor’s low budget ‘Maeve’, set in 1970’s troubles torn Belfast.

She was a faultless Pegeen Mike in the 1981 Druid Theatre production of ‘The Playboy of the Western World’ at Druid Lane,Galway and then on the subsequent tour which included the Arts Theatre Belfast in early 1982. Later that year at the Lyric Theatre, she appeared in St John Irvine’s ‘Friends and Relations’ and in what proved to be a busy period, made her first television appearance as Lorna in the opening story of Graham Reid’s four televised plays, ‘Too Late to Talk to Billy’ 1982 .

Although her stage career to that point had been commendable, she also gave punctilious performances in several films, which included a memorable portrayal in the title role of writer/director Pat Murphy’s ‘Anne Devlin’1984.

For the remainder of the 80’s she survived on a mixture of television and theatre, including a starring role in ‘Lorna’ 1987 and on stage at the Royal Court in ‘Ourselves Alone’ 1985 and ‘Perdition’ at the Conway Hall in 1988.

The watershed of her career came with her flawless performance as Aggie Mundy in Brian Friel’s ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ at the Abbey in 1990, which then transferred to the National Theatre and subsequently to Broadway for which she won a richly deserved Tony Award.

Stage credits in the 90’s were plentiful, most notable of which were ‘Rutherford and Son’ at the National Theatre in 1994, a marvellous Lady Macbeth for the RSC, in ‘Macbeth’ at the Barbican in 1996, and in 1999, ‘Juno and the Paycock’ at the Gaeity Dublin.

In 1998 she recreated her stage role of Aggie Mundy in Pat O’Connor’s acclaimed film version of ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ and lost nothing of the subtlety she brought to the original.

In theatre from 2000 she has worked almost exclusively on the London stage, in plays such as ‘The Little Foxes’ at the Donmar Warehouse in 2001, ‘Bone’ at the Royal Court, 2004, and back at the Donmar in ‘ The Cosmonaut’s Last Message’ 2005.

Her screen appearances during that time have been limited to television with guest roles in ‘Anytime Now’ 2002, starring Zara Turner and Susan Lynch and the medical drama series ‘The Clinic’, 2004.

Another fine if underused performance was her central role as Beatrice Behan, patient, enduring partner of hell-raising Brendan , played and co-directed by Adrian Dunbar in his raucous production of ‘Brendan At The Chelsea’, presented at the Riverside Studios London in 2008.

At the Gaiety Dublin in 2010 she was a splendidly adept Madge Mulhern, in a praiseworthy revival of Brian Friel’s much travelled classic, ‘Philadelphia Here I Come’, directed by Dominic Drumgoole, acclaimed artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

In 2014 at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, she was sublime as the sorrowful Mother, Kate Keller in Arthur Miller’s post WW2 tragedy ‘All My Sons’, directed by Timothy Sheader. Another exquisite performance was her cameo as the jaundiced Miss Kelly, the Enniscorthy shopkeeper, in Nick Hornby’s adaptation of Colm Toibin’s 1950’s set novel ‘Brooklyn’, released in 2015. Another small but convincing big screen appearance followed in 2016, playing Kitty in director Stephen Frears’ biopic ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’, starring the formidable Meryl Streep as the ebullient but inept soprano.

At the Arts Theatre, London in 2016 she was outstanding  as the irascible Mrs Rooney, opposite Adrian Dunbar as her inscrutable husband Dan, in Samuel Beckett’s ‘All That Fall’. She  followed this with a poised performance as Aunt Maggie Faraway in Jez Butterworth’s powerful drama ‘The Ferryman’, directed by Sam Mendes, which opened at the Royal Court in April 2017. In 2018 she produced a trademark portrayal as bereaved mother Suzanne Reid, in five episodes of Chris Lang’s crime drama ‘Unforgotten’, alongside Coleraine born Bronagh Waugh as her daughter Jessica.

Two supporting roles in 2019 and 2021 preceded a leading credit as busybody Concepta O’Hare in the homespun crime drama series ‘Hope Street’, 2021/22, written by Paul Marquess and Susanne Farrell and starring an always puzzled Ciaran McMenamin as Duty Inspector Finn O’Hare.  Brid Brennan remains an enigma, a hard earned and much respected name in theatre, but whose screen career with a few imposing exceptions has been strangely irregular.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre
-Smelling a Rat (1988) Hampstead Theatre, London

-Man, Beast and Virtue(1989) NT Cottesloe Theatre, London
-A Kind of Alaska (1998) Donmar Warehouse, London

-La Lupa(2000) RSC The Other Place, Stratford
-Absolutely Perhaps (2003) Wyndhams Theatre, London
-Pillars of the Community (2005) NT Lyttleton Theatre, London
-Woman and Scarecrow (2006) Royal Court, London
-Silverbirch House (2007) Arcola Theatre, London
-Intemperance (2007) Liverpool Everyman
-Bliss (2008) Royal Court, London

-Desolate Heaven(2013) Theatre 503, London

-Plaques and Tangles(2015) Royal Court, London

-Blood Wedding(2019) Young Vic, London

Film
– The Balloon of Romance (1982)
– Trojan Eddie (1996)
– Felicia’s Journey (1999)
– Swansong: Story Of Occi Byrne (2009)

– The Truth Commissioner(2016)

– Calm With Horses(2019)

TV
– She’s Been Away (1989)

– Tell Tale Hearts (1992)
– Hedda Gabler (1993)

– Cracker (1995)

– Father and Son(2009)

– Doctor Who(2010)

– The Escape Artist(2013)

– Quirke(2014)

– Peaky Blinders(2016)

– Dalgliesh(2021)

Harry Brogan

Born Holywood, Co. Down 1904
Died Dublin 20th May 1977

Irrepressible character actor, whose Abbey career spanned four decades and who brought more than the conventional whimsical presence to his many screen roles. He was what could be considered a second-generation Abbey Player, who arrived just after the first Hollywood exodus. Brogan first came to prominence in 1942, with appearances in the principle Dublin theatres and included the role of Ted Bogle in Paul Vincent Carroll’s ‘The Strings are False’ at the Olympia, and Tom Purefoy’s comedy, ‘Say 99’ at the Gaiety. One of his earliest Abbey roles was as Dooley in George Shiel’s ‘The New Regime’ in 1944, which saw him rub shoulders with titans such as Cyril Cusack, F J McCormick and Denis O’Dea. From the mid forties his Abbey Player status was confirmed and he was a constant in the majority of the Irish National Theatre’s post war credit lists, most notably in George Shiel’s ‘Tenants at Will’1945, Walter Macken’s ‘Mungo’s Mansion’1946 and Elizabeth Connor’s ‘The Dark Road’1948. For him, the fifties began as the forties ended, with a busy Abbey Theatre schedule and as a member of a resident cast, which was rightly considered exceptional.

Among his better work in the early fifties was Louis D’Alton’s ‘The Devil a Saint Would Be’1951, which following the destructive fire at the Abbey in July 1951, was presented at the Rupert Guinness Hall in September of that year. In 1952 he was part of the obligatory Abbey contribution to the Irish film industry when making his debut as Barnie, in Basil Dearden’s well meaning, but naive address to the IRA problem, ‘The Gentle Gunman’. With no particular ambition to pursue a film career, he continued to work enthusiastically with the Abbey, producing many memorable performances in roles such as Jimmy King in M J Molloy’s ‘The Wood of the Whispering’1953, Atty Adams in Macken’s ‘Twilight of a Warrior’1955, and Aloysius Hennessy in James Plunkett’s political drama, ‘The Risen People’1958. He also displayed sharp comedic touches in ‘A Riverside Charade’1954, Hugh Leonard’s ‘The Big Birthday’ 1956, and John O’Donovan’s satirical farce ‘The Less We Are Together’1957.

A return to films in 1958 was less challenging, he co-starred as Julie Harris’ poacher father Rabit Hamil in director George Pollock’s comedy ‘Sally’s Irish Rogue’, which was nothing more than the Abbey in celluloid, plus American guest. He followed this with a stroll in the park role in another piece of emerald whimsy, ‘Broth of a Boy’1959, notable only for the final screen appearance of legendary Abbey Player and Hollywood star Barry Fitzgerald. His most fruitful period was undoubtedly between 1958/1962, during which he established himself as one of the great unsung Irish actors, with major roles in most of the Abbey’s productions of the period. Comedies such as ‘I Know Where I’m Going’, ‘Leave It To The Doctor’ both 1959 and ‘Anyone Could Rob a Bank’ 1960 and dramas including ‘Strangers Beware’1959, and ‘It Can’t Go On Forever’1960, demonstrated the measure of his stage mastery.

On screen in 1960, he took the leading role of the grandfather in the Ted Allen adaptation ‘Lies My Father Told Me’ and two years later played Dunlavin in Brendan Behan’s autobiographical ‘The Quare Fellow’1962. Two significant Abbey appearances in 1962 brought him further critical acclaim as Old Tadhg in Liam Lynch’s undervalued social statement ‘Do the Rushes Sing in Birmingham’ and as Noble O’Hara in Kevin Casey’s powerful drama ‘The Living and the Lost’. Following the most prolific period in his professional life, Brogan’s work load although considerable, was imperceptibly thinning out. He took an also starring role in Enda O’Brien’s bittersweet romantic drama, ‘Girl With The Green Eyes’1964 and a year later was similarly credited in director Jack Cardiff’s superficial account of the early life of Sean O’Casey, ‘Young Cassidy’.

In 1966, following fifteen years of tenancy at the Queen’s Theatre Dublin, the Abbey Players took to the stage in their new arena with Brogan prominent in the cast as Sir James Hannon, for the opening night play, Kenneth E. L. Deale’s ‘The Conspiracy’, which unfortunately for him marked a more discernible diminution of viable roles. This was hardly surprising for an actor now well into his 60’s, but he still made himself available for work and was showing the way in top-drawer Abbey productions including Frank McMahon’s adaptation of Behan’s autobiographical, ‘Borstal Boy’1967, Tom Murphy’s ‘Famine’1968, and Liam Lynch’s ‘Soldier’1969. His last stage role, fittingly at The Abbey in December 1974, was as the butler in Tom Murphy’s adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’, and in a reckless escape from retirement in 1977, appeared as the blind man in writer/director Calvin Floyd’s Swedish produced horror film, ‘Victor Frankenstein’.

Harry Brogan’s legacy is that he was convincing enough to sustain a veritable lifetime career at the citadel of Irish theatre, which in retrospect explains everything.

Other Theatre and Film credits:

Theatre
– The House of Cards (1942) Olympia Theatre, Dublin

(All Abbey Theatre, Dublin)
– The Lucky Finger (1948)

– The Will and the Way (1955)
– In Dublin’s Fair City (1959)

– All the King’s Horses (1961)
– The Weaver’s Grave(1969)

Film
– This Other Eden (1959)

– A Terrible Beauty (1960)

– The Webster Boy (1962)

Shane Brolly

Born Belfast 6th March 1969

Functional but camera friendly aspiring leading man and director, one of three actor siblings in a composition that might notionally be described as a minor dynasty. After a conventional blooding in college theatre productions in Los Angeles during the eighties/ early nineties, he made his screen debut as Jack, in writer/director Klaus Hoch’s little seen thriller ‘Flypaper’1997. His first television appearance came later that year in the short lived and obscure US superhero series ‘Night Man’and repeated his role of Chrome in another episode in early 1998.

His second straight to video film was Bret Arnold’s ‘Stomping Grounds’1998, which was to be his last work of any value for three years, until an uncredited appearance in the independently produced ‘Rennies Landing’ in 2001. He was the billionaire playboy Henry Brooke in the 2002 television series ‘Chromiumblue.com’ and played Lt.Burrows in the estimable sci- fi thriller ‘Impostor’, which boasted a strong cast including Gary Sinise and Madeleine Stowe. He took a backward step in 2003 appearing in several video release productions, such as the comedy drama ‘Connecting Dots’, the film version of ‘Chromiumblue.com’, again as Henry Brooke and the low key thriller ‘Deadly Swarm’. He fared a little better as vampire- in- chief, Kraven, in director Len Wiseman’s horror fantasy‘Underworld’ 2003, which also featured Derek Jacoby and Bill Nighy.

After an ancillary part in director Fabien Pruvot’s inspired indie film ‘Sin’s Kitchen’ 2004 he took leading roles in ‘Devil’s Highway’ in 2005 and in writer/director Michael Hurst’s horror tale ‘Room 6’ in 2006. He reprised his role of Kraven in the ‘Underworld’ sequel, ‘Underworld: Evolution’ in 2006 and also that year gave arguably his most valued performance as The Man, in Mark Comer’s acclaimed Irish produced ’48 Angels’, which remains his only contribution to indigenous film and theatre. In 2007 he worked for Fabien Pruvot again, playing yet another shadowy character, this time international hit man, code named Japan, in the action film of the same name but the product suffered from a lack of box office interest and did nothing to promote his seemingly stationary career.

Shane Brolly may have more depth than the work he has hitherto undertaken in his comparatively short career and in consideration any judgement should be dispassionately deferred .

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Film

– Spread(2009)

– Underworld: The Rise of the Lycans(2009)

– Book of Fire(2015)

TV
– CSI New York (2007)
– Mr And Mrs Smith (2007)

– Happywood(2017)

W. Graham Browne

Larry Burns

Amanda Burton

Born Balloughry, Coleraine 8th January 1957

Imperturbable leading actor, exuding star bearing, whose range has not been really tested beyond television.

She studied at the Manchester Polytechnic of Film, Television and Theatre in the late seventies and for two years from 1980 worked in repertory theatre with Bolton Octagon and Dukes Playhouse Lancaster.

After graduating, she successfully auditioned for the part of Heather Haversham in the new suburban Liverpool set soap ‘Brookside’ 1982, where she remained until 1986 and soon after her departure accepted the role of Detective Constable Margaret Daly in several episodes of the bread and butter private eye series ‘Boon’1987-1989 starring Michael Elphick. For the next seven years she worked on television in such productions as ‘Where there’s a Will’ 1989 and the action thriller ‘A Casualty of War’ 1990. Then in 1993 she landed the leading role of Dr. Beth Glover, in the Derbyshire set medical drama ‘Peak Practice,’ co-starring with Kevin Whately and Simon Shepherd and after three success filled years, left the series, finding work almost immediately as Rosie Willis, in Graham Reid’s television drama ‘Precious Blood’ 1996.

Her CV was now exclusively television charged and the status quo was preserved with the role that probably suited her persona more than any other, that of pathologist Dr. Sam Ryan in the excellent long running crime drama series ‘Silent Witness’, where surrounded by cadavers, she endured for eight years.

Following further television guest roles, most notably as the protagonist Laura Tracey in the factually based ‘Whistleblower’ 2001, she became top cop Clare Blake in yet another series, ‘The Commander’ 2004 and again we were no closer to an evaluation of her proficiency beyond the small screen. Finally after twenty five years as an entrenched television actor, she made her feature film debut, appearing as the mother of long-term hard man prisoner, Michael Peterson, aka Charles Bronson, in director Nicolas Winding Refn’s laboured bio-pic ‘Bronson’ 2008.

In 2010 she signed up for another possible long haul television role, a positive shoo-in casting as head teacher Karen Fisher in the popular Rochdale set ‘Waterloo Road’, chronicling the trials and tribulations of a troubled Greater Manchester comprehensive school. In 2016 she had a supporting credit as Cherie Le Saux, wife of Brighton based gang boss Frank, played by Philip Glenister, in co-writers Gaby Chiappe and Alexander Perrin’s one-season crime thriller series ‘The Level’.

She found herself in demand in 2020, with two television series and a feature film, all requiring a pivotal maternal figure. She appeared as the tragic June Bamber in director Paul Whittington’s mini-series ‘White House Farm’, a biographical account of the 1985 Bamber family murders, with Freddie Fox as the convicted Jeremy Bamber. Against type and in arguably her meatiest role to date, she was cast as Katherine Maguire, matriarch of a Belfast crime family, in all eight episodes of the police drama ‘Marcella’, starring Anna Friel as undercover cop Marcella Backland. In her long career, Amanda Burton has been much too faithful to the service of television, which with the passing of time has placed an unnecessary constraint on an auspicious career.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Film

– Body of Water(2020)

TV
– Lovejoy (1992)
– The Gift (1998)
– Pollyanna (2003)
– Marple: Nemesis (2007)

– Midsomer Murders(2015)

– Anne Boleyn(2021)

Caolan Byrne

Born Newry 1981

 Adroit character actor, who in his mid-teens made his film and legitimate stage debuts, afterwards completing his school studies, enrolling at RADA and graduating in 2002. A member of Sean Hollywood’s Newry based Newpoint Youth Group, he made an early appearance as ‘Soldier’ in ‘A Dream Play’, as part of a Strindberg festival, directed by Sean Hollywood and performed at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 1997. That same year he played pastor’s son Ezeldel Lamthorn in writer/director Mary McGuckian’s Northern Ireland set, romantic drama ‘This Is the Sea’, starring Samantha Morton and Richard Harris.

In 1998, in his last professional work before resuming his academic studies, he was local hooligan Niall French in director Roger Michell’s 1970s West Belfast political drama, ‘Titanic Town’, featuring a trademark spirited turn by Julie Walters as matriarch Bernie McPhelimy. A fruitful period with the RSC in Stratford in 2004 brought several decent credits, such as his Duke of Burgundy, in director Bill Alexander’s faithful adaptation of ‘King Lear’, with an outstanding Corin Redgrave as the narcissistic monarch. The production then transferred to the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, before opening at the Albery Theatre, London in January 2005, where he switched roles, playing the virtuous Duke of Albany. Other appearances with the RSC that year saw him in dual roles in both ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

A rash of stage and screen work from 2008 to 2012 tested his range with a myriad of roles, only a handful indigenous. At the Hull Truck Theatre in July 2008, he excelled as dim lifeguard  Howie, in director Gareth Tudor Price’s comedy ‘Two Flags’. In September 2008 he squeezed what he could out of his character, the feckless Shawn Keogh, in Patrick Sandford’s slight tweaking of Synge’s masterwork, ‘The Playboy of the Western World’, presented at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton.

In 2010, two films of little value to him were negated by further admirable work in theatre. In a short summer season with Guildford Shakespeare Company, director Simon Usher cast him in dual roles as Longaville/Costard, in a late 1930s themed version of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, staged at Guildford Castle. This was followed by his conspicuous performance as Prospero’s protector, the spirit Ariel, at the University Lake in Guildford and directed by Hannah Chissick.

Hw was more fortunate in his next two screen projects, landing a recurring part as Belfast shipyard worker Jimmy Smith, in writer/director Ciaran Donnelly’s sizeable budget series ‘Titanic: Blood and Steel’, first broadcast in October 2012. On the big screen and at the other end of the money spectrum, he had an also-starring credit as Brother in writer/director Tom Shkolnik’s largely improvised, pragmatic drama ‘The Comedian’, with Newry born Gerard Murphy as Dad.

A run of stage appearances in 2013 emphasized his enthusiasm for diversity. He was effortlessly plausible as the bigoted whisperer Archie Kerr, in writer Sam Thompson’s seminal ‘Over the Bridge’, a damning expose of religious bigotry in the Belfast shipyard, played at the Findborough Theatre, London and directed by Emma Faulker. Later in 2013 he was invited to join the cast of Sam Shephard’s ‘A Particle of Dread: Oedipus Variations, a Field Day commission starring Stephen Rea and Brid Brennan, which premiered at the Playhouse Theatre, Derry, directed by Nancy Meckler. From 2013 he has concentrated on film and television and with one or two exceptions has managed only moderate success.

Low-key roles in the television crime drama ‘Vera’ in 2014, Stephen Frears’ biopic ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ 2016 and director Martin Campbell’s action thriller ‘The Foreigner’ in 2017, illustrated his difficulty in securing worthwhile screen contracts. He was however offered a couple of cogent parts during 2017/2019, most notably as Arnaud in two episodes of Jessie Burton’s mystery drama ‘The Miniaturists’ in 2017 and as Arin in five episodes of Jez Butterworth’s historical fantasy ‘Britannia’ in 2019. Caolan Byrne has persisted from adolescence in a largely unforgiving industry, registering several striking performances along the way, principally in that most testing of mediums, theatre, where regrettably he has been absent for a number of years.

Other Theatre, Film and TV Credits:

Theatre

-Titanic(Scenes From the British Wreck Commissioners Inquiry 1912)(2012) -The Mac, Belfast

-A Tale for Winter(2012) Tour

-The Magic(2013) Soho Theatre, Edinburgh

Film

-Swansong: Story of Occi Byrne(2009)

-Round Ireland With a Fridge(2010)

-A Good Woman Is Hard to Find(2019)

-The Wonder(2022)

TV

-Harley and the Davidsons(2016)

-Will(2017)

-Porridge(2017)

-Casualty(2019)

-Doctor Who(2020)-Bloodlands(2021)