Moyna Macgill (McIldowie)

In July 2022

 

Born Belfast 10th December 1895

Died Los Angeles 25th November 1975

Obdurate and methodical character player, whose career although not glittering, will probably be forgotten and instead will be unfairly remembered as the mother of Angela Lansbury. She was on stage at the end of WW1, making her debut in a supporting role in the Somerset Maugham comedy ‘Love in a Cottage’, at the Globe Theatre London in 1918. Other notable London stage appearances between 1920/22 included an adaptation of George Meredith’s drama ‘ Rhoda Fleming ‘ at the Ambassadors Theatre in 1920 and  ‘Angelo: The Romance of a Great Composer ‘ at Drury Lane 1922. Her 1920 introduction to films was equally significant, taking the female lead in the Welsh/Pearson silent ‘Garryowen’, a horse racing drama directed by George Pearson, going on to appear in several more dramas in the early twenties and had another starring role in her final silent production, ‘Miriam Rozelle’ 1924.

In the latter half of the decade she continued to make a modest impression on the London stage, with roles in ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ at the Barnes Theatre 1926 and two West End appearances in 1927, ‘The Great God Brown’ with John Gielgud, at the Strand Theatre and the long running ‘Interference’ at St James’ Theatre. Her first marriage to actor/writer Reginald Denham ended in 1924 after seven years and soon afterwards she married Edgar Lansbury, the son of Labour party leader George Lansbury.

This union lasted until Lansbury’s death in 1934 and produced three children, the eldest of which was Angela, born in 1925 but her career, shelved from the late twenties due to family commitments, was by the end of the thirties all but defunct. Another relationship around this time brought no stability to her life and in 1942, together with her children, including Isolde, a daughter fom her first marriage, she abruptly left England, hoping to re-invent herself in America.

With no work permit she was unable to ply her trade in the United States for several months, but was fortunate to find at least a period of job security with a   part in a Canadian theatre company’s tour of the provinces in Noel Coward’s ten one-act playlets, entitled ‘ Tonight At 8-30 ‘. A year later RKO offered her a minor role in the WW2 London set drama ‘Forever and a Day’ 1943, which brought her to the hub of the film industry and more importantly a chance to resurrect her screen career after a gap of eighteen years. Between then and 1945 she appeared in nine feature films, working out of contract for almost all of the major studios in Hollywood.

These included ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ and director Clarence Brown’s Academy Award winning ‘National Velvet’, all 1944 the latter with teenage daughter Angela Lansbury and noteworthy also for the first starring role of twelve year old Elizabeth Taylor. 1945 was slightly better in terms of role significance, the best of which was her Hester Quincey, in director Robert Siodmak’s ‘The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry’, although she managed to work with her daughter again in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, for which Lansbury won a Best Supporting Oscar. This period would prove to be her most industrious, as the latter half of the decade yielded nothing of consequence, save a co-starring role in the Fred M.Wilcox directed musical ‘Three Daring Daughters’ 1948, starring star on the wane Jeanette Macdonald.

Her big screen aspirations finally floundered in a handful of B features during 1951/52 but she did have her moment on the Broadway stage, cast as Lady Brockhurst in director Anton Coppola’s production of English born composer Sandy Wilson’s ‘The Boyfriend’, at the Royale Theatre in 1954. She found scraps of work on television and made her first small screen appearance as a dressmaker in an episode of the enduring drama series ‘Studio One’ in 1956. Further infrequent guest appearances during the early sixties included top rated series such as ‘The Twilight Zone’ 1962, ‘Dr Kildare’ 1963 and ‘My Favourite Martian’ 1964.

A brief return to films in 1964 saw her bow out in style in two successful musicals, with a marginal role in ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’ and as Lady Boxington in George Cukor’s oscar winning ‘My Fair Lady’, featuring the surprisingly harmonious partnership of Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. Moyna Macgill was an able but luckless actor, who was brave enough at age forty seven and with the none too trifling pressure of four children, to undertake and establish, largely without the comfort of a contract, a relatively modest career in the maelstrom of forties Hollywood.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Will Shakespeare(1921) Shaftesbury Theatre, London

– Pagan in the Parlour(1952) Theatre Royal, Bath

Film

– Nothing Else Matters (1920)

– Should a Doctor Tell (1923)

– The Uninvited (1944)

– Winged Victory (1944)

– The Clock (1945)

– Black Beauty (1946)

– Green Dolphin Street (1947)

– Kind Lady (1951)

TV

– Adventures in Paradise (1959)

– Mr Ed (1963)

 

 

Barry Macollum

 

Born Fermanagh 6th April 1889

Died Los Angeles 22nd February 1971

Unprepossessing character actor who had a protracted if functional Broadway career, which from the early twenties ran in tandem with a raft of minor Hollywood screen appearances encompassing both silence and sound. He was on the American stage as early as 1912 as a member of English actor Constance Crawley’s travelling company, specialising in Shakespearean roles.

His New York stage debut, an uncredited role in Jacques Coinis’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’at the 44th Street Theatre in 1915, was followed by another low key credit in ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ at the Park Theatre in 1917. The following year he appeared in the long running ‘The Betrothal’, first at the Shubert, later transferring to the Century Theatre in a cast which also featured the teenaged and prospective Hollywood star, Gladys George.

In the early twenties he took a number of medial roles in diverse productions such as ‘The Mandarin’ at the Princess Theatre and was Tom Rainey in a decent revival of St. John Greer Ervine’s Belfast set tragedy ‘Mixed Marriage’ at the Bramhall Playhouse, both 1920. Small roles in two major productions. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the Longacre Theatre 1922, starring Ethel Barrymore and ‘Macbeth’ at the 48th Street Theatre in 1924, more or less cemented his status as an enthusiastic and dependable utility player.

His first taste of the fast and furious world of screen acting came with his 1923 debut as Looney Luke in director Henry King’s adventure yarn ‘Fury’, notable only for the curiosity value of the film’s leading man, Tyrone Power Snr. After this experience he returned to the New York stage and it would be a period of six years and the advent of sound before his Hollywood journey could resume in earnest. Among his better theatre work in the latter half of the twenties were, ‘Outside Looking In’, a fast moving comedy presented first at the Greenwich Village Theatre and then the 39th St Theatre in 1925 and his Johnny Boyle in ‘Juno and the Paycock’ at the Mayfair Theatre in 1926.

The Hollywood he returned to in 1929 had now changed beyond recognition and was attracting the great and good from the world of theatre. His talkie debut that year was similarly low key, playing a character called Dogface in director Robert Flory’s mystery drama ‘The Hole in the Wall’, starring Edward G. Robinson and French starlet Claudette Colbert. He worked on another film ‘Secrets of a Secretary 1931, but once again his passion for the stage took him back to New York, where for a further six years he would ply his trade in some of Broadway’s most prestigious venues.

Between 1931 and 1934 his versatility was tested in a raft of productions across the genres. At the Guild Theatre in 1931 he enjoyed a long run in the sumptuous ‘Elizabeth the Queen’, in a cast headed by American Theatre’s golden couple, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt and the same year appeared at the Longacre Theatre as Cokey Davis , in his own production, the short lived and rather flat comedy ‘In Times Square’. Two roles in plays by Northern Ireland writers then allowed him the freedom of his Ulster dialect, playing Willie in Denis Johnston’s ‘The Moon in the Yellow River’ at the Guild Theatre in 1932 and ‘Clutie’ John McGrath in St. John Greer Ervine’s Co.Down set ‘John Ferguson’ at the Belmont Theatre in 1933.

He made four more appearances on Broadway in the thirties before his departure once again to Hollywood, where his stay this time would be much longer than he probably anticipated. Before that however he was part of a huge cast convened at the National Theatre New York in 1934 for Sean O’Casey’s drama ‘Within the Gates’, which ran for a total of 141 performances and followed this with the role of Thomas Murphy in Elsie Schauffler’s ‘Parnell’ at the Ethel Barrymore in 1935. He found work readily in the now hectic confines of Hollywood, making three films in 1937, the most significant in terms of credit rating being director Albert S.Rogell’s ‘Murder in Greenwich Village’.

In the last two years of the thirties he had a crash course in screen character playing, working on almost every conceivable narrative theme, including the French period swashbuckler, ‘If I Were King’, with Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone and a western ,‘Ride a Crooked Mile’, both 1938. He also had a minor role in William A. Wellman’s star studded and Oscar nominated desert epic, ‘Beau Geste’ 1939, but still entered the forties at the lower end of an increasingly expansive actors stockpile. Following three largely forgettable films, the best of which was the Abbott and Costello vehicle ‘It Aint Hay’, he saw his star rise briefly with director Andrew L. Stone’s superior comedy ‘Hi Diddle Diddle’, starring fading silent star Pola Negri and a co-starring role as Dr. Harvey Keating in the cult horror ‘Revenge of the Zombies’, all 1943.

His reward was a notional leg-up the credits in 1944 ,with also starring roles in the Oscar nominated ‘Kismet’ and the Oscar winning, Elizabeth Taylor breakthrough film ‘National Velvet’. He also made a short run return to New York that year, appearing as Archie Campbell in Frederick Jackson’s flimsy comedy ‘Slightly Scandalous’, which lasted barely a week at the National Theatre. A better stage/screen work balance was realized during the remainder of the forties and included Broadway successes ‘Happily Ever After’ at the Bilt Theatre 1945  and ‘The Playboy of the Western World’ at the Booth Theatre in 1946, in which he shared the stage with promising Belfast born Abbey Player, Eithne Dunne.

On screen he was seen momentarily in the adventure drama ‘Two Years Before The Mast’ 1946 and had an improved rating in George Cukor’s excellent ‘A Double Life’ 1947, which netted an Oscar for leading man Ronald Colman. In 1949/50 he made guest appearances in several teleplay format productions made popular by the de riguer casting of notable Hollywood stars of the day. His big screen CV, in need of a sharp infusion of superior product, was given a boost albeit tenuously with two very different roles, he was Lee J. Cobb’s banker  ‘JP ‘ Morgan in Elia Kazan’s seminal ‘On the Waterfront’ 1954 and a Hebrew slave in Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical extravaganza ‘The Ten Commandments’ 1956.

Theatre work was virtually non-existent in the latter half of the fifties, save a subsidiary role as Foster in Sean O’Casey’s well travelled ‘Red Roses For Me’, presented at the Booth Theatre New York in 1956. Television would dominate the last years of his career and his cameo as Patsy Kelly in a 1965 episode of the ground breaking Liverpool set police series ‘Z Cars’ was to say the least curious. His Broadway swansong and indeed his last gestures as an actor were played out in style at the Broadhurst Theatre New York in 1967, where as Jamie Cregan he appeared alongside Ingrid Bergman in Eugene O’Neill’s ‘More Stately Mansions’, the unfinished and posthumously abridged sequel to his 1958 play ‘A Touch of the Poet’

Barry Macollum in fairness was a more natural performer on stage than screen, where his rather stilted manner often produced moments of awkwardness, but he did manage to survive for over fifty years working in both citadels of the American performing arts industry.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

(All Broadway)

– The Shadow (1922) Klaw Theatre

– Loggerhead s(1925) Cherrylane Theatre

– The Banshee (1927) Daly’s 63rd St Theatre

– Mr Gilhooley (1930) Broadhurst Theatre

– Doctor X (1931) Hudson Theatre

– The Joyous Season (1934) Belasco Theatre

– Love on the Dole (1936) Shubert Theatre

– Much Ado About Nothing (1952) Music Box Theatre

Film

– Bulldog Drummond (1937)

– Tarnished Angel (1938)

– Rulers Of The Sea (1939)

– Marine Raiders (1944)

TV

– Going My Way (1963)

– Dr.Kildare (1964)

-The Girl From Uncle (1967)

 

 

Patrick Magee (McGee)

Born Armagh 31st March 1922

Died London 14th August 1982

Saturnine and compelling character actor, who was an internationally respected exponent of the plays of Samuel Beckett. He was yet another who learned his trade touring with Anew McMaster and then the Group Players, making an early appearance as Maton in George Shiels’ ‘Mountain Post’ 1948. He spent almost three years with the company, during which he appeared in many critically acclaimed productions, including Harry Sinton Gibson’s ‘Bannister’s Cafe’ 1949 and ‘The Square Peg’ 1950. In 1951 he joined several Group actors, who under the auspices of Tyrone Guthrie, who travelled to London for a series of Irish plays presented at the Lyric Hammersmith and Ambassadors Theatre as part of the Festival Of Britain.

In England, he eked out a living in repertory theatre, before a minor breakthrough, when cast in Ugo Betti’s ‘The Queen and the Rebels’ at the Theatre Royal Hammersmith in 1955. In 1958 at the Arts Theatre Club, he appeared with Jack McGowran in ‘The Iceman Cometh’ and more significantly a Royal Court appearance in Beckett’s, ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’, a play the author wrote specifically with him in mind. He made his screen debut in 1959, a brief sighting as Parsons in the series ‘Dial 999’ and in a busy period during 1960 secured further television work, which included a recurring role as Jason in the thriller serial ‘Here Lies Miss Sabry’. That same year director Joseph Losey gave him his first feature film part, an also starring credit in the hard hitting prison drama ‘The Criminal’, starrring Stanley Baker. His character, Chief Warder Barrows, created a persona he was to manipulate for most of his film career.

His television baptism was forgettable, appearing as Jason in an episode of the unremarkable thriller series ‘Here Lies Miss Sabry 1960 but he did enjoy a huge increase in work offers from that point on. He appeared in several films now considered classics of sixties British cinema, such as ‘The Servant’ 1963, ‘Seance on a Wet Afternoon’ 1964, ‘Marat Sade’ 1967 and as Seamus McCann in Harold Pinter’s ‘The Birthday Party’ 1968. His theatre standing was also enhanced during this period, with appearances at the Apollo in ‘A Whistle in the Dark’ 1961 and David Rudkin’s ‘Afore Night Come’ at the Aldwych in 1964.

That same year he joined the RSC and appeared again at the Aldwych, in the 1964 stage version of ‘The Birthday Party’, memorably putting his stamp on the character of McCann, a role he reprised in the film version four years later. In 1965 at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York, he gave what was arguably the most accurate interpretation of the Marquis de Sade, in Peter Brook’s cast laden production of Marat/Sade, for which he deservedly won a Tony award. During the seventies his screen output included two films for Stanley Kubrick, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ 1971 and the unfairly maligned ‘Barry Lyndon’ 1975, in which he gave a superb cameo as the libertine Chevalier De Balibari, perfectly capturing the character in both nuance and mood.

On television he was never short of offers, appearing in ‘ The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ 1973, in the title role of director Tony Davenall’s adaptation of ‘King Lear’ and as Ebenezer Balfour in the mini series ‘Kidnapped’ 1978. In ‘Endgame’ at the Royal Court in 1976, in a cast which included Stephen Rea, he once again demonstrated his mastery of Beckett’s work, giving a magisterial perfomance as the tyrannical Hamm, a role he first played at the Aldwych in 1964. Film work in the eighties included two flawless cameos, Reverend Slodden in Vivian Stanshall’s black comedy ‘Sir Henry at Rawlinsons End’ 1980 and Lord Cadogan in the Oscar winning ‘Chariots of Fire’ 1981. His last appearance was in writer/director Alan Gibson’s television play ‘Another Flip for Dominick’ screened in late 1982. Sadly in the summer of that year at the relatively young age of sixty, Patrick Magee died of a massive heart attack. He will be remembered as an actor, who with his probing gaze and lazy mouth, delivered the sinister element, right down to its darkened soul.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Puntila(1965) RSC Aldwych Theatre, London

– Staircase (1966) Old Vic, London

– The Meteor(1966) RSC Aldwych Theatre, London

– Keep It in the Family (1967) Plymouth Theatre, New York

– Dutch Uncle(1969) Aldwych Theatre, London

– The Battle of Shrivings (1970) Lyric Theatre, London

– The Master Builder(1974) Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead

– The White Devil(1975) RSC Old Vic, London

Film

– Dementia 13 (1963)

– Zulu (1964)

– Cromwell (1970)

– King Lear (1971)

– Young Winston (1972)

– Telefon (1977)

TV

– Dixon of Dock Green (1964)

– Canterbury Tales (1969)

– Thriller (1974)

– Oresteia (1979)

 

 

J.R. (Jimmy) Mageean

Born Cambridge, Massachusetts 21st September 1891

Died San Diego, California 6th February 1972

*Included due to a life-time contribution to local stage and screen

Slight of stature character player and highly proficient interpreter of Ulster types, with a fine line in stage and screen comedy, who forged his name with the Ulster Literary Theatre Company in the twenties, Belfast Repertory Company in the thirties and later the Northern Irish Players, before securing senior status with the Group Players during the forties and fifties. Before that he was a valued member of Frank Benson’s Shakespeare Company, appearing at the annual Stratford-Upon-Avon Festival from 1911 until 1915, making his debut as Petruchio’s servant Nathaniel in ‘The Taming of the Shrew ‘ in July 1911.  An early London stage appearance saw him prop up a reputable credit list headed by future English stage behemoth Basil Rathbone, in Frank Benson’s production of Henry V, at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London in 1914.

Despite this exalted beginning, he found life as an actor frustratingly unreliable and returned to Ireland after WWI, becoming an able supporting player with the Ulster Literary Theatre Company, registering some fine performances in the early twenties, including his role as Gnu in Rutherford Mayne’s bronze age set curiosity, ‘Phantoms’ at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in 1923. The following year at the same theatre he appeared in two further productions, taking a leading role as Captain James Cornelius in St John Ervine’s ‘The Ship’ and as New York Italian, Antonio Chiapetta in Dorothea Donn-Byrne’s Irish-American rooted comedy, ‘The Land of the Stranger’.

By the late twenties he was central to much of the activities of the Ulster Literary Theatre Company and was receiving regular plaudits in plays such as Gerald McNamara’s ‘No Surrender’ 1928 and ‘Who Fears to Speak’ 1929, both presented at the Grand Opera House, Belfast.

In 1929 he transferred allegiance to Richard Hayward’s newly formed Belfast Repertory Company, which basically replicated the strategy of his former employers, by showcasing the work of new and established local writers on the premier stages of Belfast and Dublin. One of those championed by Hayward was Sandy Row born and former shipyard worker Thomas Carnduff, whose penetrating studies of the Protestant working class struck a chord with audiences in the hungry thirties.

Mageean appeared in two such plays, ‘Workers’, at the Abbey in 1932 and ‘Traitors’ at the Empire in Belfast in 1934 and at the same venue in 1937 played Joe Anderson in Hugh Quinn’s ‘A Quiet Twelfth’, which after eight years ended his association with the innovative but itinerant Belfast Repertory Theatre Company. By the end of 1937 he had also become a veteran of seven homespun, shoestring budget films, unkindly labelled quota quickies, from the Lilliputian studios of Crusade and Fox.

His debut was as Sir Brian O’Neill, in director Donovan Pedelty’s Co Antrim set period melodrama ‘The Luck of the Irish’ 1935, which starred and was co-produced by his Belfast Repertory colleague Richard Hayward. He followed this with top billing in another Donovan Pedelty film, a stilted adaptation of James McGregor Douglas’ comedy play, ‘The Early Bird’ 1936 . With the exception of director Roy Kellino’s ‘Catch As Catch Can’ and his third Pedelty effort ‘Landslide’, both 1937, he found little or no comfort in the quality of screen work available to him.

In the evolving years of the Group Players he surprisingly assumed a less obvious role, with a position on the Board Of Directors and as producer of a handful of plays, including the early work of Joseph Tomelty. He waited until the 1950s before making regular appearances in Group productions such as his own co-written comedy ‘Arty’, with James Young in the title role and Janet McNeill’s ‘Signs and Wonders’ both 1951. The period until 1955 offered him many opportunities to shine and included at least two Group classics, Michael J. Murphy’s ‘Dust Under Our Feet’ 1953 and Joseph Tomelty’s ‘Is the Priest at Home ? ‘ 1954. Both plays featured the cream of the Group Players, including J.G. Devlin, Elizabeth Begley, Margaret D’Arcy and Harold Goldblatt.

After a considerable absence from films, he returned for what proved to be his final appearance, taking a small role in the David Niven/ Barry Fitzgerald begorrah romp, ‘Happy Ever After’ 1954 and a year later in one of his last roles in local theatre, played Mr Appleton in Patricia O’Connor’s ‘ The Farmer Wants a Wife’, at the Group in March 1955.

He relocated to San Diego, California in 1957 and In 1959, with his career all but over, he made an unremarkable television debut in an episode of CBS’ Westinghouse/Desilu Playhouse drama series and following another more substantial television role as a rather elderly criminal in the crime drama series ‘ The Untouchables’  in 1960, he effectively ended a career which began a few years before WW1 and embraced the golden years of Ulster theatre.

Other Theatre and Film credits:

Theatre

– The Early Bird(1936) Empire Theatre, Belfast

– All Souls’ Night(1949) Group Theatre, Belfast

– My Brother Tom(1952) Group Theatre, Belfast

– Ballyfarland’s Festival(1953) Group Theatre, Belfast

– The Season’s Geetings(1953) Group Theatre, Belfast

– Mrs. Martin’s Man (1954) Group Theatre, Belfast

Film

– Macushla (1937)

– Against the Tide (1937)

– My Wife’s Family (1956)

 

Marty Maguire

Born Belfast 1965

Persevering multi-purpose character actor, with a productive history in both musicals and legitimate drama. As a new member of director Michael Poynor’s Ulster Youth Theatre, he made his relatively high profile debut as the swaggering Danny, opposite Josephine Mulvenna’s tender-hearted Sandy, in the enduring, adolescent favourite, ‘Grease’. Opening at the Riverside Theatre, Coleraine in the summer of 1985, it later transferred to the Grand Opera House, Belfast.

A year later he landed another leading role with the Ulster Youth Theatre, as Jets gang leader Riff, in the Bernstein/Sondheim masterwork, ‘West Side Story’. This led to his first professional acting work, when Charabanc cast him in dual roles in the premiere of Marie Jones’ bittersweet, ‘The Girls in the Big Picture’, directed by Andy Hinds at the Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen in September 1986, featuring another Youth Theatre member, Sean Kearns. He reunited with Kearns at the Lyric, Belfast in 1987, in director Roy Heayberd’s adaptation of Lyle Kessler’s three-handed tragicomedy, ‘Orphans’, playing brutal elder brother Treat, to Kearns’ reclusive and vulnerable Phillip.

At the same venue in 1988 Heayberd offered him the role of the aggrieved Hareton Earnshaw, in John Boyd’s dramatization of Emily Bronte’s well travelled melodrama, ‘Wuthering Heights’, starring Richard Croxford as Heathcliff and Emma Lewis as Cathy. In 1989 and still in his early twenties, he took the daunting step of moving to Los Angeles, where he settled for almost twenty years. He spent the nineties working in small  neighbourhood  theatres, principally at Ireland’s 32, a pub/arts space in Van Nuys, South Fernando Valley. Noteworthy appearances there included his Mr Dastardly in Elizabeth Brooks’ ‘Orphan Dreams’, performed at the Chamber Theatre, Los Angeles in 1992.

His First screen credit in 1997 was low-key, listed as Fred in writer/director Hope Pirello’s family comedy/drama, ‘St Patrick’s Day, in a cast headed by erstwhile Hollywood star Piper Laurie and included fellow West Belfast born Geraldine Hughes. His follow- up film role, four years in the waiting, was as hitman Jake McCrory in director Richard Moos’ independently produced crime drama ‘Orphan’ in 2001.

He had to wait until 2001 for his stage breakthrough, an assured and true performance as Belfastman Kenneth McCallister in Marie Jones’ acclaimed monodrama ‘A Night in November’, which played sucessfully at the Celtic Arts Centre and Falcon Theatre, Los Angeles. He travelled to Belfast for a short period in 2004, guesting in an episode of the Lenadoon based BBC comedy,’Pulling Moves’, entitled ‘Two Weddings and a Break-in’ and to shoot scenes in the Ian McElhinney directed musical, ‘On Eagles Wing’, which was released in January 2005.

Back in LA in the early 2000s, authentic stage work remained elusive, but did include two leads in Irish themed productions in New York, during 2006/07. He was an estimable Bull McCabe in John B. Keane’s West of Ireland drama,’The Field’, directed by Ciaran O’Reilly at the Irish Repertory Theatre and in 2007 was faultless as inebriate squatter Knacker Woods, in the premiere of Marie Jones’ Belfast set social drama, ‘Rock Doves’, staged at The Irish Arts Centre and directed by Ian McElhinney.

He returned home from California in 2008, effectively to start again and was soon in the thick of it. Writer/director Martin Lynch proposed him for the part of ex Derry undertaker, Oscar Coyle in his troubles exposition ‘Chronicles of Long Kesh’, which premiered at the Waterfront Studio, Belfast in January 2009. In 2010 he revisited his theatrical origins in the quasi-biographical musical, ‘Dancing Shoes: The George  Best Story’, co-written by Marie Jones and Martin Lynch, in which he took the roles of Matt Busby and Bob Bishop. The highly popular production played to full houses at the Grand Opera House, Belfast through August of that year.

A year later he appeared in the crime drama ‘No Saints for Sinners’, a limited budget film co-written and starring Belfast native and indie cineaste Rick Crawford, shot on location in Los Angeles. During this time he registered several compelling stage performances, such as his wistful Belfast tiler Socrates, in a 2011 touring revival of Owen McCafferty’s caustic satire ‘Shoot the Crow’. In 2012 at the Theatre at the Mill, Newtownabbey, he was the neurotically fastidious Felix Ungar, jousting with Guy Masterson’s slovenly Oscar Madison, in Neil Simon’s abiding deadpan comedy, ‘The Odd Couple’.

In two very different plays at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 2013, he was first the socialist, but bigoted Belfast docker, John Rainey in director Jimmy Fay’s veracious adaptation of St John Greer Ervine’s neglected, potent 1911 melodrama, ‘Mixed Marriage’. A few months later he played multi- characters in a reimagining of Marie Jones’ madcap comedy, ‘Weddins, Weeins and Wakes’, now a pseudo-musical, directed by Ian McElhinney and starring Katie Tumelty and Sean Kearns.

At the Lyric again in 2014, he once more demonstrated his versatility with dual roles in a 50^th anniversary revival of Brian Friel’s revered ‘Philadelphia Here I Come’, artfully directed by Andrew Flynn, with Peter Coonan and Gavin Drea as Gar Public and Gar Private. A television appearance as a gaoler in two episodes of Alan Cubitt’s psychological crime drama ‘The Fall’ in 2014, was followed in 2015 by his recurring character Minister O’Hare, in writer/director Michael McDowell’s BBC one season comedy, ‘Number 2s’.

That year at The Mac, Belfast, he turned in a pinpoint performance as the slapdash Eddie, in Brenda Murphy’s expeditious Patsy Cline inspired farce, ‘Crazy’, directed by Martin Lynch, with Caroline Curran as the lovelorn Ruby. A productive 2016 on stage included several central credits in a diversity of productions. He played alcoholic Malachy McCourt Snr in an idiosyncratic musical reworking of Frank McCourt’s biographical novel, ‘Angela’s Ashes’, directed by Thom Sutherland and premiered at the Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick. A month later at the Lyric, Belfast, he was car mechanic Jack, in Conor McPherson’s spectral drama ‘The Weir’ and at the Mac was browbeating Belfast shipyard worker, Alec Patterson, in Martin Lynch and Gary Mitchell’s complex social drama, 1932-The People of Gallagher Street.

Two new plays in 2017 gave him opportunities to expand his rural Ulster repertoire. In Jimmy Kerr’s revised romantic comedy, ‘Ardnaglass on the Air’, he was perfectly plausible as community radio presenter Hugh Francis McConnell, in tandem with Jo Donnelly’s Margaret Mary Rose O’Boyle, a C21 Theatre presentation directed by Stephen Kelly. Another made to order portrayal was the convivial grocer Stephen, in writer Joe Brennan’s atmospheric, Co Louth set comedy, ‘The Blueboy of Glenmore’, a Brassneck Theatre production, which after an acclaimed Ulster tour, beginning at the Roddy McSorley Social Club, closed at the Lyric in May 2017.

He worked with Rick Crawford again in 2018, in his shoe-string budget, bucolic comedy, ‘The Mean and the Greene’, playing elder brother Riley to Crawford’s embittered Tommy, with Roma Tomelty as their mother Martha. At the Lyric’s Naughton Studio that year, he dominated as the sadistic, opportunist paramilitary Duff, in Pearse Elliott’s disquieting and grimly humorous ‘The Sword in the Sand’, adeptly supported by Mark Assante and Gerard Jordan Quinn.

During the Origins Irish Festival in New York in January 2019, he appeared in Patricia Byrne’s powerful social awareness drama ‘Blinkered’, directed by Shauna Kelpie, which was first performed at the Playhouse, Derry in 2016. Later the same year at The Mac Theatre, he was the wearied, eponymous Lucky Eric, one of a cast of four, assuming multifarious characterizations in John Godber’s frenetic ‘Bouncers’, directed by Zoe Seaton.

Marty Maguire, despite modest successes during his protracted American sojourn, has since established himself, particularly in local theatre as a demonstrable interpreter of the much imitated Ulster type.

 

Other Theatre, Film and TV Credits:

Theatre

-Da(1987) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Dockers(2011) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-As the Tide Ebbs(2016) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-A Station Once Again(2018) Tour

-Kiss Me Kate(2020) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Film

-Fragments(2008)

TV

-Jag(2001)

-Vikings(2015)

-Paula(2017)

-Three Families(2021)

 

 

Oliver Maguire

Born Magherafelt

Died Dublin 10th January 2012

Poised and unflagging stage and screen actor, a Lyric Theatre Player in the early sixties, who cut his teeth in regional rep in England, later enjoying some relative success in London’s West End. He had an ensemble role as servant Leonardo in the Shaftesbury Theatre production of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in 1964 and then took dual parts in the RSC’s staging of Robert Bolt’s children’s play ‘The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew’ at the Aldwych in December 1965.

Television work soon followed, with his debut as Philip, opposite Elizabeth Begley in Stewart Love’s ‘The Sugar Cube’, an episode of ‘Thirty Minute Theatre’ screened in February 1966. Two further television appearances saw him in a low-key credit in the series ‘Mogul’, aka The Troubleshooters’ in 1966 and a co-starring role as Johnson in a UTV production of John D. Stewart’s Co. Armagh shot, campy parochial comedy, ‘Boatman Do Not Tarry’in 1968, with a heavyweight local cast including Elizabeth Begley, J.G. Devlin and Patrick McAlliney as the on-strike ferryman, John Corby.

At the Royal Court, London in 1969, he was enveloped in a huge cast in writer Frank Norman’s prison drama ‘Inside Out’, overseen by the young avant garde director Ken Campbell. A year later and still at the Royal Court, he rubbed shoulders with Paul Schofield and Colin Blakely in Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’, directed by Anthony Page.

Between 1971 and 1975 he worked continuously on television and added two feature films to his burgeoning CV, albeit for the most part in a low profile capacity. The most significant of these were arguably as Ian McCullum in James Costigan’s Belfast set television drama ‘A War of Children’ in 1972 and as Irish cabinet minister’s son Brian Menton, in Dominic Behan’s political thriller ‘According to the Rules’, an ‘Armchair Theatre’ episode in 1974. A short sojourn with the National Theatre in 1977, saw him on the Olivier stage as Captain Brennan, with J.G. Devlin as Peter Flynn in director Bill Brydon’s celebrated adaptation of ‘The Plough and the Stars’ and as Jimmo in John Mackendrick’s child murder play, ‘Lavender Blue’ at the Cottesloe.

Another glut of screen credits through the end of the seventies, were short on quality and only his recurring role as Don Stevenson in Kenneth Royce’s crime thriller series ‘The XYY Man’, 1977 and as a Shrieve in the four episodes of the Doctor Who story, ‘The Ribos Operation’ 1978, were of any consequence. He returned to Ireland in 1979, appearing as Pearse Crowe at the Eblana Theatre, Dublin, in Brian Lynch’s social drama, ‘Crooked in a Car Seat’, a Dublin Theatre Festival presentation for that year. Prior to his protracted spell on the Irish stage in the early eighties, he was offered a peripheral role as Imperial Guard, Cabbel in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, George Lucas’ 1980 follow- up to the game changing spectacular, ‘Star Wars’ in 1977.

Key performances during this new chapter in local theatre, included his steadfast union activist John Graham, in Martin Lynch’s ‘Dockers’ at the Lyric in January 1981 and at the Oscar Theatre, Dublin in September of that year, played Walter, in Declan Burke-Kennedy’s Dublin Theatre Festival contribution, ‘The Wind That Shook the Barley’. He made two other appearances in Belfast/Dublin theatres in 1982 and was persuasive as RUC Special Branch officer Stanley, in Martin Lynch’s challenging, ‘The Interrogation of Ambrose Fogarty’ at the Lyric and at the Olympia, took the role of Tony Sleehaun in Hugh Leonard’s unconvincing political allegory ‘Kill’.

Following minor involvement in Willy Russell’s Oscar nominated ‘Educating Rita’ in 1983, he was cast as Father Gene in the 1984 television docudrama ‘Children in the Crossfire’, an early cross- community promotional film, co-produced by ‘Hill Street Blues’ actor Charles Haid. Between 1985/88, he was in television overdrive, but still disappointingly fell short of a leading role. The best he could muster during this productive period was as a Co. Roscommon garda sergeant in John McGahern’s emotive drama ‘The Rockingham Shoot’ in 1987 and his IRA chief in the thriller ‘Act of Betrayal’ in 1988.

On stage he was die- hard protestant and 36^th Ulster Division volunteer George Anderson, in the premiere of Frank McGuinness’ imposing WWI narrative, ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme’, presented at the Abbey in 1985. Again at the Abbey in 1988, he played the objectionable father in Sebastian Barry’s debut play, the reflective rural Ireland drama, ‘Boss Grady’s Boys’.

He was just as busy on screen in the nineties, though with his profile still below the radar, however he did manage to secure roles in most of the major Irish produced films of the decade. He appeared fleetingly as a detective in Jim Sheridan’s 1993 autobiographical feature ‘In the Name of the Father’, based on Gerry Conlon’s 1990 Guildford Four exposition ‘Proved Innocent’. He played another police officer in Hugh Leonard’s 1994 comedy/mystery ‘Widows Peak’, starring Joan Plowright and Adrian Dunbar, then followed other supporting roles in a series of bleak, uncompromising films, graphically depicting the violence and despair of the troubles. Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s ‘Nothing Personal’ in 1995, with Michael Gambon and John Lynch, was perhaps a trifle clichéd, with his credit as Marty barely registering. Another lightning quick sighting as Independent Republican MP Frank Maguire in writer/director Terry George’s hunger strike chronicle, ‘Some Mother’s Son’ in 1996, preceded his transitory role as a prison governor in Jim Sheridan’s 1997 Golden Globe nominated ‘The Boxer’, enhanced by a tour de force performance from lead, Daniel Day- Lewis.

At the end of the nineties he was given a functional cameo, listed as Confessional Priest, in Alan Parker’s ‘Angela’s Ashes’, adapted from Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name and in 2003 was cast as the eccentric tenant, Russell, in three episodes of the popular RTE comedy/drama series ‘Bachelors Walk’. His final screen credit was unfortunately as routine as before, playing the fractious Bomber Brennan’s father, Victor, in another RTE produced series, the forceful Co Offaly set drama, ‘Pure Mule’ in 2005. Oliver Maguire’s screen efforts were many and varied, but in the main were critically without any meaningful degree of substance. He was clearly more respected in theatre and recorded a number of sterling performances during his committed and appreciable career.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-The Merry-Go-Round(1973) Royal Court, London

-And Then Came Jonathan(1980) John Player Theatre, Dublin

-Many Young Men of Twenty(1983) Olympia Theatre, Dublin

-The Hidden Curriculum(1983) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-The Oval Machine(1986) Project Arts, Dublin

-Dialann Ocrais(1987) Abbey Theatre, Dublin

-Waiting for Godot(1989) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Film

-Hennessy(1975)

-The Thirty Nine Steps(1978)

-The End of the World Man(1986)

-The Last of the High Kings(1996)

-Coolockland(2000)

TV

-The Price(1985)

-We’ll Support You Evermore(1985)

-The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story(1986)

-Echoes(1988)

-The Hanging Gale(1995)

-Kidnapped(1995)

-Bloody Sunday(2002)

-Omagh(2004)

-Proof(2004)

 

 

Paula Malcomson(Williams)

 

 

Born Belfast 1st January 1970

Spirited and versatile character actor, whose profile catapulted when she landed the role of Trixie, the wild west saloon working girl, in HBO’s top rated series ‘Deadwood’ 2004. Leaving Belfast in her mid teens, she backpacked around Europe before arriving in New York in 1991, where, working in a Greenwich Village bar she met independent film maker Michael Almereyda. With no previous acting experience, she was offered the role of a bar tender in his experimental film ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ 1992.

The acting bug had now taken hold and after a rushed course in dramatic arts and against all convention, she was cast as Allie Earp in director George P. Comatos’ big budget western ‘Tombstone’ 1993. For the next couple of years it was back to learning the trade, appearing in small scale theatre productions in Los Angeles. She returned to the big screen in the mid to late nineties with roles barely on the right side of uncredited, which was probably the level she realistically would have expected to be, given her her lack of experience. She had to wait until 1999 and the meatier role of Marjorie Detterick, in director Frank Darabont’s Oscar nominated ‘The Green Mile’, before she could consider her luck had changed.

That year she also appeared in the Pacific Resident Theatre production of ‘The Playboy of the Western World’, which at least gave her a taste of the classic plays of her homeland and in her television debut played Jean Stanley in an episode of the crime drama series ‘The Profiler’. Screen roles in 2000 were still insubstantial and included Marcella in former mentor Michael Almereyda’s modern day version of ‘Hamlet’, with Ethan Hawke in the title role and some fleeting guest appearances in television series such as ‘The Practice’. She followed this with another low- key part in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Artificial Intelligence’ 2001 and after three years of routine television work and the odd quality stage appearance in productions such as the Pacific Residents Theatre presentation of ‘Pygmalion’ in 2003, she finally secured her career making role in ‘Deadwood’.

However after ‘Deadwood’ in which she appeared in all thirty six episodes, she continued working on television, guesting on a number of highly successful series, including ‘Lost’ 2006, ‘E.R.’ and ‘Cold Case’, both 2007. With no worthwhile film work on offer during 2009/11, she once again found television a more compliant source of employment, with an unbroken run of appearances in a number of moderately successful series. In 2009 she took a leading role as Amanda Greystone in the one season ‘Caprica’, a spin-off of the more enduring ‘ Battlestar Galactica’.

The following year on much shorter contracts, she had recurring roles in the political crime drama ‘ The Event’ and ‘Sons Of Anarchy’, Kurt Sutter’s imprecise depiction of the lives of a Northern Californian biker Gang. In 2011 she was a little more constricted, registering only guest appearances in a number of television series, such as the fatuous ‘Lie to Me’, the medi-drama ‘Private Practice’ and ‘Prime Suspect’.

In perhaps her most significant part since ‘Deadwood’, she was cast as Mrs Everdeen, mother of principle character Katniss, in the ‘Hunger Games’ film trilogy, 2013/15, Gary Ross’ adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ sci-fi adventure novels. During the same period she had a long run as Abby Donovan in the CBS acclaimed crime drama series, ‘Ray Donovan’ and in 2015 she took a leading credit in director Alison Eastwood’s romantic drama ‘Battlecreek’, opposite rising Swedish born, Bill Skarsgard. In 2017 she played the depressive Roz Demicheles in Jimmy McGovern’s six-part drama ‘Broken’, starring Sean Bean, battling his own demons, as Father Michael Kerrigan.

A co-starring role as Helen Clarke in director Stacie Passon’s mystery drama, ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’, preceded a functional credit as Charys -El in writer David S. Goyer’s sci-fi mini-series ‘Krypton’, both 2018. Paula Malcomson has been fortunate in what could best be described as an interesting career, a few diversions notwithstanding, her major role in a hit television series certainly made life that much easier.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Anna Christie (2002) Pacific Residents Theatre, Los Angeles

– An Ideal Husband (2003) Met Theatre, Los Angeles.

Film

– Trance (1998)

– Quintessence (2003)

– June And Orlando (2003)

– Grass Stains(2016)

– Feed(2017)

TV

– Baby (2000)

– John from Cincinnati (2007)

– Law&Order: LA(2011)

– Archer(2012)

– Come Home(2018)

– Deadwood: The Movie(2019)

– Watchmen(2019)

– Redemption(2022)

 

 

Denis Martin

Born Belfast 1919

Died London 1988

Resourceful actor/singer/theatre producer, who following his arrival in London in the immediate post-war, was offered a minor role as Aden Grayshott in Noel Coward’s romantic musical ‘Pacific 1860’. The production was presented at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in December 1946, with a cast including Broadway and Hollywood diva, Mary Martin.

A year later he made his screen debut in producer Philip Bates’ television operetta ‘Miranda and the Statue’ and was recruited by Laurier Lister to appear alongside Max Adrian and Joyce Grenfell in the revue ‘Tuppence Coloured’, which opened at the Lyric, Hammersmith in September 1947, later transferring to the Globe Theatre.

He would work with Lister and Adrian again and at the same theatres during 1948/49, in the musical comedy ‘Oranges and Lemons’ and co-starred in the subsequent television adaptation, broadcast in May 1949. He made another high profile appearance in Ivor Novello’s long running musical romance ‘King’s Rhapsody’, which ran at the Palace Theatre, London from September 1949, registering 841 performances along the way.

In late 1952 he was a splendid, lovestruck Albert Porter in a revival of Eleanor and Herbert Farjoen’s operetta ‘The Two Bouquets’, opposite ‘Round the Horne’ regular Hugh Paddick. This commendable production was staged at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin and was another, afforded a wider television audience, screened by the BBC in August 1953.

He kept busy in 1954 with low-level credits in two feature films, appearing unsurprisingly as a singer in director Mario Zampi’s rural Irish comedy ‘Happy Ever After’, aka ‘Tonight’s the Night’, starring David Niven and Barry Fitzgerald. In writer Jack DeWitt’s Korean war drama ‘The Bamboo Prison’, he played a P.O.W in a cast that featured Brian Keith and the ill-fated Robert Francis, who was tragically killed a few months later aged twenty five.

That same year he was singularly impressive as the penurious Don Antonio in Lionel Harris’ adaptation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comic opera ‘The Duenna’, performed at the Westminster Theatre, London, in a cast headed by Joan Plowright and Patricia Routledge.

In demand during 1955/56, he made appearances at the Duke of Yorks, London in Ronald Duncan’s ‘The Punch Review’, at the Little Theatre, Bristol in the Chinese romantic drama ‘Lady Precious Stream’ and had a recurring role in the television comedy series ‘Here and Now’.

He was a longtime and enthusiastic member of music-hall custodians the London Players Theatre, where in later years he would become Director of Production. Notable roles there included the spurned and devious Geoffrey Ware in a musical adaptation of the Henry Arthur Jones/ Henry Herman melodrama ‘The Silver King’, which opened in December 1958.

One of his last screen roles was as the eponymous hero in director Marion Radclyffe’s 1959 musical ‘The Highwayman’, lending an air of conviction to an otherwise stilted production. In the mid sixties and early seventies he brought his enthusiasm and expertise to the cast of the enduring Victorian themed, variety show ‘The Good Old Days’, first broadcast in 1953, ably presided over by a garrulous Leonard Sachs as master of ceremonies. Denis Martin was blessed with a distinctive tenor voice and a surfeit of acting skills and soon established himself in 1950s London musical theatre, a tried and tested genre still flourishing on stage and film on both sides of the Atlantic.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits

Theatre

-William Poel Commemoration(1951) Old Vic, London

-Hello Out There(1954) Drama Dept, Bristol University

Film

-Scrooge(1951)

TV

-1066 and All That(1952)

 

 

Laine Megaw

Born Belfast 1964

Unfeigned and self-contained character actor, who attended E15 Acting School in Laughton, Essex from 1987/90 and following her graduation, returned to Belfast and wasted no time in securing her first professional role. At the Lyric Theatre in November 1990, as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, she appeared as the pragmatic Marian Mitchell, daughter of ethical shop steward Davy Mitchell in a reasonable revival of Sam Thompson’s enduring masterwork, ‘Over the Bridge’. Further stage work in December of that year saw her in the Michael Poynor produced Christmas pantomime offering ‘Cinderella’, which also featured Sheelagh O’Kane and New Zealand actor/director Morag Brownlie.

In 1991 she was the spirited Maggie in director Roland Jaquarello’s adaptation of Robert Ellison’s ‘Rough Beginnings’, a tale of hopes and dreams played out in a colourless Belfast backdrop, in a cast that included husband-to-be Stuart Graham. Her screen debut that same year was a modest role in director Robert Cooper’s adaptation of William Trevor’s rural Irish murder mystery ‘Events at Drimaghleen’, an episode broadcast as part of the screenplay series on BBC2. Work in the nineties was irregular and included Declan Hughes’ portrait of sororal angst, ‘New Morning’, presented at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast during the 1994 Queen’s Festival.

In 1996 she toured with the Clonmel based Galloglass Theatre Company in Oscar Wilde’s romantic comedy ‘An Ideal Husband’ and made her big screen entrance as scorned wife Patricia Starkey in Colin Bateman’s dark comedy ‘Divorcing Jack’ in 1998. At the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre in 1999 she received favourable notices as Margaret, the hard –as-nails wife of UDA boss Geordie, played by Patrick O’Kane, in Gary Mitchell’s ‘Trust’, directed by Mick Gordon it was the first of his plays to be produced on the London stage.

A welter of stage activity in 2000 proved an exercise in versatility, beginning in March with her pivotal role as Portia in a touring production of ‘The Merchant of Venice’. In April again at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre, she was particularly effective in a strong Ulster cast, as by the book D.S. Caroline Paterson in Gary Mitchell’s political drama ‘The Force of Change’. She finished the year at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in a festival production of Brian Friel’s plaintive ‘Aristocrats’, with another central role as the phlegmatic Judith O’Donnell, eldest daughter of a failing patriarch, presiding over a disjointed family and a crumbling mansion in 1970s Donegal.

In director Harry Bradbeer’s 2002 screening of Gary Mitchell’s brutal play ‘As the Beast Sleeps’, she was effective as the disaffected Sandra, wife of Stuart Graham’s UDA commander Kyle, but would wait almost two years for another screen role. She returned as religious spinster, Auntie Rita, sparingly used in writer/director Terry Loane’s comedy- drama ‘Mickybo and Me’, adapted from Owen McCafferty’s play ‘Mojo and Mickybo’ and released in 2004.

During 2005/07 she registered two incidental television appearances and a median stage role, with the more notable of her screen output as Annie McKenna in two episodes of RTEs medi-soap, ‘The Clinic’ in 2005. At the Baby Grand in Belfast in 2007 she appeared as Anne, opposite Harry Towb in the premiere of Sam McCready’s quasi-autobiographical ‘New York State of Mind and remained in the cast for the subsequent short tour.

A second husband/wife screen pairing with spouse Stuart Graham offered her no room to impress, with only a short glimpse as Mrs Lohan to his prison warder Raymond, in Steve McQueen’s multi-award winning ‘Hunger’ in 2008. Further inconspicuous roles in 2009 found her once again deployed as the symbolic spouse. She was a visiting wife in Martin Lynch’s ‘Chronicles of Long Kesh’, a tracing of the relatively short history of the notorious ‘Troubles’ prison which premiered at the Waterfront Studio, Belfast. On screen she played Mrs Hill, other half of Lalor Roddy’s private detective, in writer/director Michael McDowell’s television docudrama ‘Scapegoat’, a commendable reconstruction of the infamous Patricia Curran murder case of 1952.

Laine Megaw has had an unremarkable screen career, where opportunities were scarce, but fared much better on stage, which has proved a more effective medium for her skills.

Other Theatre and Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-Bell, Book and Candle(1998) Edinburgh Suite, Europa Hotel, Belfast

Film

-Sunset Heights(1999)

TV

-Give My Head Peace(2001)

-Murphy’s Law(2006)

 

Eleanor Methven

Born Magherafelt 1960

Somewhat esoteric but enduring character actor with a heavily slanted and respected theatre background, whose earliest professional appearances were with the Lyric Belfast at the beginning of the eighties.

She was cast as a bar -woman in Tommy McArdle’s ‘Heritage’, an adaptation of two  Eugene McCabe plays, Dolly, in ‘The Threepenny Opera’, both 1980 and at the same venue in 1981, appeared in Wilde’s ‘An Ideal Husband’ and as IRA hostage Millicent Armstrong in another McCabe piece,’ Victims’. In 1983, with fellow actors Carol Scanlon and Marie Jones, she co-founded Charabanc Theatre Company and saw their first production, Martin Lynch’s ‘Lay Up Your Ends’, premiered at the Arts, Belfast the same year.

For the next twelve years she remained closely associated with Charabanc, appearing in the majority of the progressive company’s productions during the eighties, including Marie Jones’ ‘Now You’re Talkin’, at the Arts in 1985 and ‘The Girls In the Big Picture’ at the Ardhowen Theatre Enniskillen in 1986. That same year she made her low- key film debut as a receptionist in Bill Miskelly’s Irish produced ‘The End Of The World Man’, which for the remainder of the eighties proved her only distraction beyond the confines of theatre.

Her first television role was fleeting, playing a headmistress in the controversial political docudrama ‘Shoot To Kill’ 1990, in which she was lost amidst the huge Irish born cast which included James Greene, Denys Hawthorne and Ian McElhinney. In the nineties she found herself more in demand in theatre, with notable roles in Andrew H inds’ ‘October Song’ at the Playhouse Derry 1992, Jennifer Johnston’s ‘How Many Miles To Babylon’ at the Lyric Belfast 1993 and a Charabanc production of Thomas McLaughlin’s ‘Iron May Sparkle’ at the Drill Hall London in 1994. On screen she had a small part in Jim Sheridan’s successful 1997 feature film ‘The Boxer’ and took a slightly better position in the credit list with her role as Georgina Simpson in the Co.Wexford set melodrama ‘A Love Divided’ 1999.

During the 2000 Edinburgh Festival she was part of an excellent Abbey cast in town for the showpiece event, the premiere of Frank McGuinness’ translation of Ramon Maria Del Valle-Inclan’s trilogy of plays, entitled ‘Barbaric Comedies’, which disappointingly drew mixed reviews during its run at the Kings Theatre. Later that year she was back on the Abbey stage, appearing as the Housemaid in an updated Dublin set christmas farce version of Moliere’s much loved classic, ‘Tartuffe’ and in 2001 had co-starring roles in two Irish produced restricted budget films, writer/director John Forte’s comedy ‘Mad About Mambo’ and Kirsten Sheridan’s black curio ‘Disco Pigs’. In 2003 she deservedly won the Irish Times/ESB Best Actress Award for her role as the stalwart Maggie Mundy in the 2002 An Grianan Theatre, Letterkenny production of ‘Dancing At Lughnasa’.

She had now established herself as a reliable theatre player and endorsed this with appearances on the two main Dublin stages in 2003, taking prominent roles in Thomas Kilroy’s ‘The Shape Of Metal’ at the Abbey and a Frank McGuinness adaptation of Ibsen’s ‘The Wild Duck’ at the Gate. On television she was still struggling to create even a modest profile, a dilemma seemingly lost on casting agents, whose drip feed of also starring parts could hardly be described as challenging. There were glimpses of her screen potential in two such roles, as Helen Dempsey in Dermot Boyd’s compelling drama ‘The Return’ 2003 and as Ursula in writer Peter Whalley’s excellent ‘The Baby War’ 2005.

In 2006 she produced another solid performance in ‘Homeland’, an Abbey production of Paul Mercier’s modern day take on legendary celtic heroes, Oisin and Tir Na- nog and in a more comfortable cameo played Mrs LeFroy in ‘Becoming Jane’ 2007, director Julian Jarrold’s loosely structured biopic of the early letter writing years of Jane Austen. In a busy period from 2007, her most active to date, she made numerous appearances on the Dublin stage and enjoyed decent cameos in two contrasting Irish produced films, both directed by Tom Hall. At the Abbey in 2007 she had a median role as the maid Lucy in George Farquhar’s early eighteenth century restoration comedy, ‘The Recruiting Officer’ and was dispirited writer Lilian in a Dublin Theatre Festival production of Ioanna Anderson’s bittersweet, ‘You Are Here’, presented at the site specific Quartiere Bloom in 2008.

A short term contract with RTE through 2007/08, saw her play unfastidious counsellor Dervla Rodgers in the medical drama series, ‘The Clinic’ and in 2009 she took an also- starring role in Tom Hall’s decidedly unfunny comedy, ‘Wide Open Spaces’, starring among others, a bewildered Ardal O’Hanlon. In March of that year, at the Project Arts in Dublin, in celebration of Rough Magic Theatre Company’s  twenty fifth anniversary, she played discontented lesbian, Louise, in Bryan Delaney‘s splendid adaptation of Michael Tremblay’s complex ensemble play, ‘Solemn Mass For A Full Moon In Summer’, in a cast which also included Cathy Belton and Aoife Duffin.

She was more fortunate with her cameo as Rosemary, in another Tom Hall offering, the black comedy ‘Sensation’, released in 2010, a much smaller budgeted project than his previous ‘Wide Open Spaces’, but infinitely more convincing. Easily inside the comfort zone was her Norma Hubley, mother of the bride, in Rough Magic’s production of Neil Simon’s biting comedy ‘Plaza Suite’, which undertook a successful Irish tour in 2012. She again was persuasive as Mrs Dangle, in another Rough Magic presentation, Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s late 18^th century theatrical satire , The Critic’, a 2013 Dublin Theatre Festival offering , directed by Lynn Parker and staged jointly at the Culture Box and The Ark.

In 2014 she appeared peripherally in three episodes of the Irish produced family drama ‘Amber’, starring Eva Birthistle and David Murray. At the Project Arts, Dublin in 2016, she played innkeeper Peggy Barclay in Rough Magic’s production of Stewart Parker’s 1798 rebellion play, ‘Northern Star’. On television in 2017 she was the straight talking housekeeper Hannah, in director Vanessa Caswill’s splendid interpretation of Louisa May Alcott’s American classic, ‘Little Women’, which drew inspired performances from Emily Watson and most notably Maya Hawke as Jo March. Eleanor Methven has, in a long and not too conspicuous career made her own appreciable impression , particularly in Irish theatre, where she has seldom, if ever, disappointed.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– My Silver Bird(1981) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Somewhere Over the Balcony(1986) Drill Hall, London

– Culture Vultures(1988) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Pentecost(1996) Donmar Warehouse, London

– Our Father(1999) Almeida Theatre, London

– Simpatico(1997) Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast

– The Factory Girls(2001) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Conversations on a Homecoming(2002) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Jane Eyre(2003) Gate Theatre, Dublin

– The Year Of The Hiker(2006) Druid Theatre, Galway(Tour)

– The Last Days of Judas Iscariot(2009) Project Arts Centre, Dublin

– Christ Deliver Us(2010) Abbey Theatre, Dublin

– The Importance of Being Earnest(2010) Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

Film

– The Snapper(1993)

– An Irish Father(2016)

TV

– Falling for a Dancer(1998) 

– D.D.U.(1999)

– Titanic: Blood and Steel(2012)

– The Ice Cream Girls(2012)

– Reign(2013)

– Come Home(2019)

– Derry Girls(2019)

– Normal People(2020)

– Fair City(2021)

 

 

Amy Molloy

Born Belfast 1985

Productive stage actor with an inconspicuous screen history, who trained with the Gwyneth Murdock school of Speech and Drama in Belfast, completing her LAMDA exams remotely, circa 2003. In 2004 she was awarded a place at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London, graduating in 2008. In 2005 she took a short study course at the American Academy of Speech and Drama in New York, appearing as a guardian angel in Jose Rivera’s surreal ‘Marisol’, directed by ‘Raging Bull’ actor Cathy Moriarty.

Back at Mountview in 2006 she took various roles in writer Martin Crimp’s postmodern piece ‘Attemps on Her  Life’, directed by prospective award- winning Derek Bond. Early professional stage work included her housekeeper Polina, in Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’, at the Chelsea Theatre, London in 2008, directed by Phil Weaver and ‘Once a Catholic’, at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London in February 2009. That same year saw her in imposing form as the eponymous, aspiring adventurous actor in the premiere of John Crilly’s historical drama ‘Kitty and Damnation’, staged at the Lion and Unicorn, London in August 2009.

In Belfast at the Brian Friel Theatre in October 2009, she was cast as the pregnant trickster Poppet in Vassily Sigarev’s nihilistic comedy ‘Black Milk’, with Packy Lee as her mercenary companion Lyovchick. Between 2010/12 she worked regularly in theatre, across multiple genres, most notable were as bovine killer Mairead in Martin McDonagh’s masterful dark comedy, ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’, directed by Paul Kerryson at the Curve Theatre, Liecester in February 2010.

Later that year at the Abbey in Dublin she played Frida Foldal in the premiere of Frank McGuinness’ adaptation of Ibsen’s ‘John Gabriel Borkman’, featuring the titular Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw, overseen by former Royal Court director James MacDonald. The production, cast intact, transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in January 2011.

She then took the role of the prudent Molly Durcan  in Jaki McCarrick’s Irish famine inspired ‘Belfast Girls’, which premiered at the King’s Head, Islington in August 2011. In November 2011 she toured with the Druid Theatre, Galway as expectant village girl Mary Madden, in John B. Keane’s cherished family drama ‘Big Maggie’, directed by Garry Hynes. In another premiere at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, she appeared as the faithful Louise Kendall in Joseph O’Connor’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s romantic drama, ‘My Cousin Rachel’. The stong cast was headed by Hannah Yelland, Bosco Hogan, Stephen Brennan and Bryan Murray and directed by Toby Frew.

Her eventual screen career began with promise, a supporting role as Moya Shine, disaffected best friend of protagonist Alice Watters, played by Jane McGrath in writer/director Johnny Gogan’s independent film, the Donegal set crime thriller ‘Black Ice’, released in 2013, which preceded an industrious period between 2014/15, producing a surfeit of work on both stage and screen. Directors Sophie Motley and Roisin McBrinn cast her as both Colorina and Alejandro in Fermin Cabal’s visceral Chilean trilogy, Villa, Discurso and Tejas Verdes, performed as promenade pieces in a series of monologues, staged at the Mac, Belfast in May/June 2014.

She was less fortunate on screen that year, with an inconsequential role in director Yann Damange’s Belfast set, troubles drama ‘71’, which regrettably was the best on offer. She registered another active year on stage in 2015, giving her further opportunities to utilize her skills in both experimental and legitimate theatre. She was Aine in Olga Nikora’s social drama ‘Rock/ Paper/ Scissors at the Jack Studio Theatre, Brockley and  Orla in Belfast born Martha Keith Barnett’s two-hander ‘Little Boxes’ at Theatre 503, London. In September of the same year she was effective as demure preacher’s daughter Elizabeth Fairley in April De Angelis’ riotus ‘Playhouse Creatures’, examining the trials and tribulations of female roles in mid 17^th century English theatre, presented at the MAC, Belfast and co-starred Roma Tomelty as matriarch Doll Common.

In  what would be her highest profile role to date, director Vicky Featherstone offered her the part of daughter Julie Miller, in David Ireland’s darkest of comedies, ‘Cyprus Avenue’, which premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in February 2016, with a towering performance by Stephen Rea as deranged Belfast Loyalist Eric Miller and Andea Irvine as his wife Bernie. Later in 2016 she toured in a revival of Enda Walsh’s disquieting two-hander ‘Disco Pigs’, excelling as Sinead opposite Ciaran Owens as Darren, Corkonian hellraisers, aka Runt and Pig, directed by JMK award –winning Cathal Cleary, who was at the helm of an earlier production at the Young Vic in 2011.

At the Finborough Theatre, London in 2018, she produced an impressive portrayal of American missionary Minnie Vautrin in Christopher Chen’s ‘Into the Numbers’, a harrowing telling of the 1937 Nanking massacre, directed by George Strait. In 2019 on the NT’s Olivier stage, she played village girl Bridget in director Ian Rickson’s quixk rerun of Brian Friel’s omnipotent ‘Translations’, with Ciaran Hinds and Seamus O’Hara as father Hugh and son Manus, 19^th century Donegal Hedge School teachers and Fra Fee as returning prodigal son Owen.

Still seeking a breakthrough on screen, she co-starred as Holliday Grainger’s sister Jean in director Sophie Hyde’s independently produced comedy drama ‘Animals’, filmed on location in Dublin and British Independent Film award winner for 2019.

At the Edinburgh Fringe in 2021 she delivered a compelling monologue as Kate Regan in Michael John O’Neill’s quest narrative ‘This is Paradise’, presented at the Traverse Theatre, directed by Katherine Nesbitt and a year later made a rare screen appearance, a modest sighting in the second series of Chris Brandon ‘ local  crime drama ‘Bloodlands’, starring perpetual policeman James Nesbitt. Amy Molloy is an effective performer, who should have the recognition her work, particularly in theatre merits, another who unfortunately cannot disburden herself of the tag, awaiting discovery.

Other Theatre, Film and TV Credits:

 Theatre

-Over the Bridge (2010) Finborough Theatre, London

-Teaset (2015) Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh

-Eliza’s Adventures in the Uncanny Valley (2018)

-This is Paradise (2021) Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Film

The Sea (2013)

TV

-50 Ways To Kill Your lover (2014)

-Call the Midwife (2014)

-The Fall (2016)

 

Flora Montgomery

Born Greyabbey 4th January 1974

Engaging and comely, occasional leading lady, of proven aristocratic Scottish ancestry, who trained at the Gaeity School of Acting in Dublin during the early nineties.

One of her first professional appearances was as Della, in Dublin’s Co-Motion Theatre Company’s production of Patrick McCabe’s ‘Loco County Lonesome’, at the Garage Theatre, Monaghan in 1994. The following year she made her television debut as Susan Fisher, in an episode of the prison drama ‘The Governor’ and in 1996 returned to Belfast and the Lyric stage, as Kate, in Bill Morrison’s ‘Drive On’, which featured Sean Caffrey and John Keegan in the cast.

Her first big screen role was barely credited, when cast as a film student in director Kieron J. Walsh’s independent produced, ‘The Perfect Blue’, of which little has been seen since it’s release in 1997. The irony at large in the parallel worlds of stage and screen was never more evident, as, when less than a year later she won the Irish Times sponsored Irish Theatre Award for best actress, for her central performance in August Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’, at the Lyric Belfast in 1998.

She became a more familiar face on television over the next couple of years in a wide variety of roles, including a colonial femme fatale in the 1930s Kenya set police drama series, ‘Heat and Sun’, Octavia Aldridge in ‘A Certain Justice’ and Isabella in ‘Wuthering Heights’ all 1998.

In 2000 she took the leading role of Trudy, in Roddy Doyle’s Irish produced romantic comedy ‘When Brendan Met Trudy’, her second project with Kieron J. Walsh and on television the following year, had a guest starring role in the Scottish Highlands set soap ‘Monarch of the Glen’.

She continued to keep a firm hold on her stage aspirations with meritorious performances in Neil LaBute’s trio of plays ‘Bash’ 2001 and Brian Friel’s adaptation of Chekhov’s ‘The Bear’ 2002, both at the Gate Theatre, Dublin.

2003 saw her co-starring  in writer/director Elizabeth Gill’s low budget comedy drama ‘Goldfish Memory’, a  tale of meaningless affairs among Dublin’s young free and singles and on television guested in an episode of the SAS inspired series ‘Ultimate Force’.

In theatre that year she gave a praiseworthy performance as Irene, in Wesley Moore’s thought provoking study of false memory syndrome, ‘A Reckoning’, presented at the Soho Theatre, London; although her next West End appearance was less memorable, playing the frosty Sian in Moira Buffini’s black comedy, ‘Dinner’ at the Wydhams in 2004.

She did however sample a little local dark humour in 2004, cast as Carol in several episodes of BBC NI’s popular comedy series ‘Pulling Moves’, working alongside local actors made good, Kathy Kiera Clarke and Ciaran McMenamin. On screen in 2005 she had a medial role in the anthropological themed period drama, ‘Man To Man’ and on stage a year later was a splendid Kate in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ at Bristol Old Vic and an unyielding journalist in Colin Teevans’ ‘How Many Miles to Basra’, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.

She had mixed success in two American film productions in 2006, lucklessly co-starring with a jaded Sharon Stone in the reprehensible ‘Basic Instinct 2’, but fared a little better in her leading role as Addy, in writer/director David L.Cunningham’s bargain basement horror thriller ‘After’.

On television in 2009 she had an also- starring credit as ex-prisoner Dougray Scott’s girlfriend Anna, in Frank Deasy’s IFTA award winning four part crime drama, ‘Father and Son’ 2009, was followed by a noteworthy performance as the disdainful Leonora, in a respectable adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s  1915 novel, ‘The Good Soldier’, presented at the Theatre Royal, Bath in 2010.

In 2012 she co-starred as Julia in director Gerald Fox’s film adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn’s novel ‘Mother’s Milk’ and had a sizable role as PG. Wodehouse’s step-daughter Leonora, in writer Nigel Williams’ excellent interpretation of the political leanings of the writer during WW2, screened on BBC4 in March 2013. That same year she gave an insightful performance as Assia Wevill, troubled lover of poet Ted Hughes, played by Daniel Simpson, in Ann Henning Jocelyn’s disjointed play, ‘Doonreagan’, staged at Jermyn Street Theatre, London.

She followed two guest appearances on television in 2014 with her role as novelist Hannah Jarvis, in a touring revival of Tom Stoppard’s comic masterwork, ‘Arcadia’ in 2015, with Robert Cavanah as self-serving literary professor Bernard Nightingale. In 2021 a cameo as PSNI Superintendent McAllister in writer Chris Brandon’s political crime thriller ‘Bloodlands’, was preceded by a guest role in an episode of Mike Bartlett’s social drama series ‘Life’ in 2020. In 2022  she proved a credible Norma Major, appearing in ten episodes of Peter Morgan’s Golden Globe winning ‘The Crown’, opposite Jonny Lee Miller as Prime Minister John Major.

 In July 2022 she was astutely cast as Isabelle de Bremont in an episode of the cosy Gallic mini series, ‘Murder in Provence’, entitled ‘Death at Chateau de Bremont’, starring Roger Allam and Nancy Carroll. In a career which still awaits significant recognition, Flora Montgomery has, despite her best efforts, been unable to raise her profile beyond that of a very capable utility player.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-Walk Hard(2005) Tricycle Theatre, London

-Uncle Vanya(2007) Birmingham Repertory Theatre

-Devil With the Blue Dress(2018) Bunker Theatre, London

Film

– Rabbit Fever(2006)

– Speed Dating(2007)

– The Daisy Chain(2008)

– Endeavour(2012)

– Slammer(2020)

TV

– Poirot(2000)

– Murphy’s Law(2005)

– Anner House(2007)

– Quirke(2014)

– Grantchester(2014)

– A Very English Scandal(2018)

 

 

Carol Moore(Scanlan)

Born Glengormley 8^th September 1956

Actor/director/writer and veritable pantologist, a Stranmillis College, Belfast(1979) and QUB(1999) graduate, who enrolled at the Lyric Theatre Drama Studio, Belfast in 1979.

Her professional theatre debut was a walk-on role as a servant in Moliere’s 17^th century farce, ‘The Miser’, presented at the Arts Theatre, Belfast in 1981. In early 1983, together with Marie Jones, Eleanor Methven, Maureen McAuley and Brenda Winter, she co-founded what was to become the prolific itinerant theatre company Charabanc, conceived initially to correct the unquestionable imbalance in work offers endured by female performers.

The company thrived for twelve years, producing a respectable twenty two plays, written in the main by Marie Jones during its 1980s apogee. The inaugural production, Martin Lynch’s ‘Lay Up Your Ends’ opened at the Arts Theatre, Belfast in May 1983 and featured chief protagonists Jones, Methven and Scanlan(Moore) as striking mill workers, set in Belfast in 1911. Director Pam Brighton utilized the strengths of each actor to unerring effect with Marie Jones as the profane Belle, Eleanor Methven as the redoubtable Florrie and Scanlon herself as the plaintive Eithne McNamara.

Buoyed by this success, the company then unveiled a second piece, the social drama ‘Oul Delf and False Teeth’, written by Jones and again directed by Pam Brighton, which premiered at the Arts in early 1984. Set in the Markets area of Belfast, she took a central role as the young, optimistic Anna McNamara, seeking direction in the throes of the Northern Ireland elections of 1949.

She made her television debut in a ‘Play for Today’ episode ‘The Cry’ in 1984, an ancilliary role as Shevaun in writer/director Christopher Menaul’s adaptation of John Montague’s short story of the same name, set in late 1950s Northern Ireland, with a cast largely comprised of Ulster born actors, including Denys Hawthorne, Adrian Dunbar and Michael Duffy.

Other leading parts with Charabanc during the eighties, included her over wrought Jackie in the satire ‘Now You’re Talkin’, at the Arts Theatre, Belfast in 1985, notable for its flexible denouement and in multiple roles in the dark comedy ‘Somewhere Over the Balcony’, staged at the Drill Hall, London in 1987.

Her first big screen appearance in writer/director Joe Comerford’s award- winning 1988 Galway set thriller ‘Reefer and the Model’, was significant, co-starring as Teresa the pregnant model, opposite Ian McElhinney’s ex IRA man Reefer.

In writer Neill Speers’ taut three hander ‘Cauterised’ in 1989, Charabanc’s first presentation at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, she was impressive as shop manageress Mill and in the company’s return to the Arts Theatre the following year, took another leading role as school canteen supervisor Jeanette Duncan in Marie Jones’ social narrative ‘The Hamster Wheel’. This was to be Marie Jones’ last direct contribution to the Charabanc cause and of the founding five, only Eleanor Methven and Scanlan herself remained. Undeterred they continued into the nineties, touring with plays of conscience, from established writers such as Thomas McLaughlin’s ‘The Frontline Café’ 1991, Andy Hind’s ‘October Song’ and Cathy Hayes’ ‘Skirmishes’, both 1992.

Following her role as the sagacious housekeeper Poncia in Lorca’s final play, ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’, directed by Lynne Parker and staged at the Arts in February 1993, she delivered an admirable performance at the Project Arts, Dublin in July 1993, as Karen, wife of an imprisoned IRA man in Jennifer Johnston’s short monologue ‘Twinkletoes’.

In 1994 at the Drill Hall, London, in Thomas McLaughlin’s sketch driven two hander ‘Iron May Sparkle’, both her as Olive and Eleanor Methven as Claudette filled their custom built roles with more than a hint of gay abandon, in a production which later toured in Northern Ireland in late 1995.

Earlier in 1995, in her first directorial project with the company and with a name change to Moore, she took the helm at the Playhouse Theatre, Derry, in Sue Ashby’s specially commissioned , ‘A Wife, A Dog and A Maple Tree’. The piece, at the heart of Charabanc’s raison d’etre, a company with a pure social voice, that survived a number of years beyond the departure of Jones, marked the end of an enlightening and  stimulating journey.

In the late nineties, after a functional screen role in Jim Sheridan’s Golden Globe nominated ‘The Boxer’ 1997, she was back on form as dutiful wife Linda Loman in the Lyric’s 1998 revival of Arthur Miller’s modern classic, ‘Death of a Salesman’, with an equally notable performance by Bernard Kay as the woebegone Willy Loman.

In the early 2000’s she alternated equally between acting and directing and included Marie Jones’ ‘Women on the Verge of HRT’ 2000, Brian Friel’s ‘The Freedom of the City’ 2001, Frank McGuinness’ ‘The Factory Girls’, Billy Roche’s ‘The Calvacaders’, both 2002 and Stewart Parker’s ‘The Iceberg’ 2004, all as director.

Acting roles in the same period saw her in ‘Weddin’s Weeins and Wakes’ 2001, ‘The Blind Fiddler’ 2003, both by Marie Jones and Sam Shepherd’s ‘True West’ 2004, all at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. In a continuous spell of directing during 2006/09 on both stage and screen, she registered a decent level of success with Damien Gorman’s ‘1974: The End of the Year Show’ at the Lyric in 2006, ‘The Liverpool Boat’ at the Docker’s Club, Belfast in 2008, co-written by Marie Jones and Maurice Bessman and the independently produced feature ‘Pumpgirl’ 2009. The film, adapted from actor/director Abbie Spallen’s 2006 stage play, a sex lies and misery study, let loose in a very dark corner of South Armagh, featured a formidable cast headed by Gerard Murphy, Geraldine Hughes and Richard Dormer.

Around this time she began her association with the avant-garde, Belfast based Kabosh Theatre Company, taking the role of shopkeeper Maggie Boyd in a revival of their promenade piece ‘Henry and Harriet in 2008 and as Rosie, opposite Vincent Higgins, in another moving theatre experience, Laurence McKeown’s two hander ‘Two Roads West’ in 2009.

Key stage roles from 2010 included the senescent prostitute/madam, Bella in a revival of Marie Jones’ tragicomedy ‘Rock Doves’ at the Waterfront Studio, Belfast in 2010. As one of the Three Witches/Weird Sisters in director Lynne Parker’s adaptation of ‘Macbeth’ at the Lyric in 2012 and as the ghost Lily Matthews in a commendable production of Stewart Parker’s final play ‘Pentecost’, directed by Jimmy Fay, again at the Lyric in 2014.

In 2021 she secured a supporting role as Deidre, in the company of a raft of Ulster actors in writer/director Uberto Pasolini’s award-winning “Nowhere Special”, filmed principally in N. Ireland. It starred an excellent James Norton as the terminally ill single parent John and Daniel Lamont as his four-year-old son Michael. 

An undoubted champion of Ulster theatre, Carol Moore would certainly have thrived in another time, another place, perhaps the inventive effervescence of the celebrated Group Theatre during its glory years of the 1940s’50s.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

– Gold in the Streets(1986) Arts Theatre, Belfast

– The Glass Menagerie(1996) Arts Theatre, Belfast

– The Chairs(2003) Market Place Theatre, Armagh

– Shrieking Sisters(2013) City Hall, Belfast

– Belfast By Moonlight(2013) St George’s Church, Belfast

– Can’t Forget About You(2014) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Those You Pass on the Street(2015) Tour

– Dirty Dusting(2017) Tour

– The Experience of Being(2019) Baby Grand, Grand Opera House, Belfast

Film

– The Truth Commissioner(2016)

TV

– The Daily Woman(1986)

– Five Minutes of Heaven(2009)

– Scup(2013)

 

 

Colin Morgan

Born Armagh 1^st January 1986

Insouciant and effective leading actor and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduate from 2007, who rather auspiciously made his professional debut that same year at the Young Vic, Southbank, London. He made the most of this opportunity, proving impressive in the title role of DBC Pierre’s black comedy ‘Vernon God Little’, directed by Rufus Norris, in a cast including ‘The Thick of It’ regular Joanna Scanlan.

A few months later in September 2007, he was cast as the teenaged Esteban in Samuel Adamson’s adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s multi-award winning film ‘All About My Mother’, staged at the Old Vic, London, with Lesley Manville as the eponymous Manuela.

Back at the Young Vic in 2008 he effected a masterful performance as murder suspect Jimmy Rosario in a revival of Thomas Babe’s New York set drama ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’, directed by Dominic Hill. Following his first screen engagement as Jethro Cane in an episode of ‘Doctor Who’ in July 2008 and subsequent central credits in two independent films, he was propelled into instant stardom as the young wizard Merlin, in the BBC’s fantasy drama of the same name, which ran from September 2008 until December 2012.

During this protracted period he registered only one stage appearance, playing the gay and low spirited Carlos in Pedro Miguel Rozo’s intensely comic ‘Our Private Life’, which opened at the Royal Court, London in February 2011.

In the wake of his ‘Merlin’ success, he unsurprisingly was offered a plethora of screen work after his well-received role as Prospero’s mischievous spirit/servant Ariel, in director Jeremy Herrin’s commendable 2013 production of ‘The Tempest’ at the Globe Theatre, London, his career would take further steps in the right direction.

In 2014 he took two notable screen roles, first in the Belfast set psychological crime thriller ‘The Fall’, appearing in three episodes of the second series as Detective Sergeant Tom Anderson and then played ill- fated WW1 soldier Victor Richardson in the film adaptation of Vera Brittain’s autobiographical and critically acclaimed ‘Testament of Youth’. The following year he was convincing as Kray gang member and driver Frankie Shea, brother of Frances, the tragic and ephemeral wife of Reggie Kray, in writer/director Brian Helgeland’s indifferently received ‘Legend’, starring a splendid Tom Hardy as both Kray brothers.

On television in 2016 he starred as eminent London psychologist turned Somerset farmer, Nathan Appleby, in writer Ashley Pharoah’s late 19^th century supernatural drama series ‘The Living and the Dead’, co-directed by Alice Troughton, with whom he worked during his brief time on ‘Doctor Who’. A number of film appearances followed, most notably his leading credit as Paul Ashton in writer/director Charles Garrad’s 2017 mystery drama ‘Waiting for You’, which co-starred celebrated French actor Fanny Ardant.

An infrequent stage appearance that year drew well-earned reviews for his role as the discontented editorial assistant Dean, in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ angst- ridden ‘Gloria’, at the Hampstead Theatre, London. Film work in 2018 included writer/director Rupert Everett’s biographical drama ‘The Happy Prince’, in which he played Lord Alfred Douglas, opposite Everett himself as the physically declining Oscar Wilde.

Two high grade London stage appearances in 2018/19 dispelled any doubts of his proficiency in theatre. At the National in May 2018, he was outstanding as Owen, son of Ciaran Hind’s Hedge school teacher Hugh, in director Ian Rickson’s  scrupulous revival of Brian Friel’s multilayered masterpiece, ‘Translations’, presented on the Olivier stage. A year later at the Old Vic he was the equitable Chris Keller in Arthur Miller’s 1947 American tragedy, ‘All My Sons’, directed by Jeremy Herrin and starring an inspired Sally Field and Bill Pullman.

His run of commanding stage performances continued at the Bridge Theatre, London in 2020, in Caryl Churchill’s bite-sized two-hander ‘A Number’, playing with great inventiveness, three characters, two, clones of himself and was ably assisted by a sublime Roger Allam as his ostensibly contrite father, Salter. A co-starring role as loyalist agitator Billy Clanton in Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical, award- winning ‘Belfast’ in 2021, brought him a number of positive reviews. This followed Gwyneth Hughes’ compelling and factual two-part social drama ‘Three Families’, filmed in Belfast, in which he played distraught father-to-be Jonathan Kennedy, opposite an excellent Amy James Kelly as partner Hannah.

Colin Morgan was fortunate to have experienced early success on both stage and screen, and in the intervening years has justified the confidence in his ability, first identified by among others, NT Artistic Director, Rufus Norris.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-Mojo(2013) Harold Pinter Theatre, London

Film

-Parked(2010)

-Island(2011)

-The Huntsman: Winter’s War(2016)

-The Rising: 1916(2017)

– Benjamin(2018)

TV

-Quirke(2014)

-Humans(2015)

 

 

Declan Mulholland

 

Born Belfast  6th December 1932

Died London 29th June 1999

Purposeful and physical journeyman actor, who had no history on the Irish stage before his departure to London in the early fifties, as a qualified carpenter in search of the anticipated work boom.

In the late fifties he joined the radical Somers Town Theatre Group in Camden and during his time there befriended the legendary theatre director Joan Littlewood.

She suggested he might, with a little perseverance, make a living as a professional actor, which at the time was flattering, but for him impractical advice.

Ironically he did find work at Pinewood Studios at the end of the fifties, building and dismantling film sets and several years later made his film debut as Morrison, a lower order crew member, in director Lewis Gilbert’s Napoleonic war drama, ‘HMS Defiant’ 1962.

In the early years he was to find that acting for a living was not always guaranteed and indeed on more than one occasion was forced to employ his former trade to make ends meet. It was around this time that he made an appearance with the RSC , taking multiple minor roles in the 1962 production ‘ The Caucasian Chalk Circle ‘ at the Aldwych Theatre, London.

His first television appearance, a minor fringe role, came in a 1963 adaptation of ‘As You Like It’, jointly directed by Michael Elliott and Ronald Eyre. Between 1964/1968, he recorded numerous inconsequential small screen credits and included the political drama series, ‘The Midnight Men’ 1964, as a cafe proprietor and as Taffy Jones in the medical soap Dr. Finlay’s Casebook’ 1968.

During the remainder of the sixties his television output amounted to bit parts in obscure series such as ‘The Jazz Age’ 1968 and writer Bill Craig’s 16th century adventure drama, ‘The Borderers’ 1969. He also found low level work in three feature films released in 1968, the best of which was Tony Richardson’s splendid remake of the 1936 Hollywood epic, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.  That same year he made another West End appearance, with a small part in the Mermaid Theatre’s Christmas pantomime ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, directed by Sean Kenny.

In the seventies he was still firmly rooted to the lower reaches of the credit lists, with a roll call including such titillating nonsense as ‘Naughty’ 1971 and a walk-on in John Wayne’s London set crime thriller, ‘Brannigan’ 1975.

A subsidiary role in director Peter Medak’s adaptation of Peter Barnes’ ‘The Ruling Class’, was at least a temporary release from the dross and he maintained his interest in theatre, with an appearance in the Royal Court’s production of Edna O’Brien’s ‘A Pagan Place’, both 1972.

One of his few noteworthy screen appearances in the mid to late seventies, was a co-starring role as Olsen, in director Kevin Connor’s adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fantasy adventure, ‘The Land That Time Forgot’ 1975, starring television western stalwart, Doug McClure.

In 1977 the chance of screen immortality was snatched from him, when the scene involving his character Jabba The Hut in ‘Star Wars’ was subsequently deleted, following George Lucas’ realisation that the size and shape of the space creature did not lend itself to human form.

A little consolation was his role as Till, in several episodes of iconic series ‘Doctor Who’ 1978 and in 1980 appeared with two other Belfast born actors, James Ellis  and Sam Kydd in the childrens urban adventure film, ‘High Rise Donkey’. A year later he had a co-starring role as Harry in writer Jack Pullman’s successfully adapted mini series ‘Private Schulz’ but the same year was consigned to walk-on part in Terry Gilliam’s comedy fantasy ‘Time Bandits’.

A spell in theatre in the early eighties included significant parts in ‘As You Like It’ at the Aldwych 1981, ‘Lock Up Your Daughters’ at the Queens Theatre London 1982 and a particularly suitable casting as Sir Toby Belch in ‘Twelfth Night’, at the Lyric Belfast in 1983.

Film parts were scarce in the eighties and produced nothing of consequence but he was marginally more fortunate on television, with a brace of guest roles in the zoo based series ‘One by One’ 1985 and ‘Casualty’ 1987.

He had a scrapbook moment in 1993 when he joined the Aldeburgh Festival choir for a CD recording of Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Beggars Opera’, a talent he had hitherto restrained and in his penultimate feature film appearance, had a concise little cameo as a priest, in John Roberts’ marvellous Irish set tragi-comedy ‘War of the Buttons’ 1994.

Declan Mulholland saw out the last years of his career in the manner in which he began, with brief but prudent performances in a number of small budget films, including director Peter Yates’ ‘A Month in the Country’ 1995 and he would have been the first to admit that stardom was always an ambitious expectation, instead he opted for an enjoyable jaunt in the shadow of the limelight.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Amadeus(1982) Theatre Royal, Bath

– Act of Union(1980) Soho Poly, London

Film

– Theatre of Blood(1973)

– Joseph Andrews(1977)

– Time Bandits(1981)

– The Tall Guy(1989)

TV

– The Big Spender(1965)

– Rogue Male(1976)

– Quatermass(1979)

 

 

Mark Mulholland

 

Born Dublin 31st May 1939

Died Belfast 24th October 2007

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

Artful and practised character player and former League of Ireland footballer, who was prominent on the Belfast stage for over thirty years, during which time he forged a serviceable career on screen, appearing in an assortment of ethnically constrained roles from the early seventies.

His first professional stage appearance, a low key credit in G.P.Gallivan’s ‘The Stepping Stone’, a now forgotten but potent drama based on the 1921 Anglo/Irish Treaty which premiered at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin in 1963, was followed with a walk-on television debut in John O’Connor’s childrens fantasy ‘Neilly And The Fir- Tree’, 1964.

He made an early impression in Ulster theatre, cast as Alan Bradshaw in Sam Cree’s comedy ‘Widows Paradise’ at the Arts Belfast in 1966 and a year later at the same venue took a small role as Demetrius, in a routine production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.

In 1969 he appeared in three plays staged in Dublin, the first an Ulster Theatre Company presentation of George Shiel’s revisionist piece, ‘Macook’s Corner’ at the Abbey, featuring a cast of former Group Theatre leading lights, including J.G.Devlin, Margaret D’Arcy and Harold Goldblatt.

In August of that year, again at the Abbey, he played Charles Burton in Conor Farrington’s Irish period drama, ‘Aaron Thy Brother’ and the following month took the role of The Warder in John Boyd’s ‘The Assassin’, a Dublin Theatre Festival offering presented at the Gaiety.

His film debut was predictably on message, cast as Jack Sloan in director Daniel Haller’s somewhat bawdy romantic farce, ‘Paddy’ 1970 and the same year had a similarly peripheral role in Lamont Johnson’s war drama ‘The Mackenzie Break’.

Following several low profile years, he re-emerged in Patrick Galvin’s ‘We Do It For Love’ at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 1975 and for a period in the late seventies worked irregularly in RTE’s rural drama series ‘ The Riordan’s’, in which his character Dr. Murray was decidedly on the wrong side of underused.

At the beginning of the eighties he was offered a co-starring film role as Martin Sweeney, in Pat Murphy’s independently produced ‘Maeve’ 1981, a little seen but thought provoking study of love and dissent within the republican laager.

His Lyric Theatre appearances in a two year period from 1982 were prodigious to say the least, with leading roles in a wide variety of plays including Graham Reid’s ‘The Hidden Curriculum’ 1982, Martin Lynch’s ‘Castles in the Air’ 1983, Daniel Magee’s ‘Horseman Pass By’ and John Boyd’s ‘The Flats’ both 1984.

On television he was an ideal choice for the part of Uncle Andy in Graham Reid’s celebrated Billy trilogy, appearing in the second and third of the series, ‘A Matter of Choice for Billy’ 1983 and ‘A Coming to Terms for Billy’ 1984.

A memorable cameo as hoary protestant paramilitary gunman Norman in Alan Bleasdale’s marvellous black comedy ‘No Surrender’ 1985, gave a hint of his proficiency in fashioning a fine line in ethnic types but although obviously capable, he was still no closer to a significant screen breakthrough.

At The Lyric in 1985 he appeared as grieving father Seamus Moore in Martin Lynch’s West Belfast set drama ‘Minstrel Boys’ and again at the Lyric was perfectly cast as mature student Andy, in John Boyd’s angst ridden and edgy ‘Summer Class’.

In the late eighties he found work with varying degrees of success in all media, appearing regularly at the Lyric, notably in the 1988 premiere of Robin Glendinning’s comedy drama ‘Culture Vultures’ and on television in 1989 played Father O’Malley in an adaptation of Catherine Cookson’s Tyneside set period melodrama ‘The Fifteen Streets’.

He disappeared from the screen until 1992, when he returned in two bit part roles, misemployed as a peasant in Ron Howard’s anaemic Irish themed frolic ‘Far and Away’ and barely noticed as Mr O’Hare in an episode of the popular crime drama series ‘Taggart’.

A dormant spell in theatre during the nineties was temporized only by his masterly performance as traveller patriarch Old Mikey, in Deirdre Hines’ ‘A Moving Destiny’, presented at The Building Theatre, Ballina in 1996. For the remainder of the decade his film and television appearances were meagre and only his role of the rough living Tick in the mini-series ‘Eureka Street’ 1999, gave at least a meaningful slant to an otherwise inert period.

During 2002/03 he made his customary ephemeral appearances in two locally produced films, imperceptible as George Devine in director Terence Ryans constrained adaptation of Spike Milligan’s ‘Puckoon’ 2002 and inanimate as the Old Sheep Farmer in Karl Golden’s comedy ‘The Honeymooners’ 2003. In 2002 at The Theatre On The Rock in West Belfast, he gave an ebullient performance as cantankerous painter and decorator Misery, in Brenda Murphy’s adaptation of ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist’, in a cast including old Lyric and Arts collegue John Hewitt. His final screen endeavours were as incidental as before, with director Gil Kenan’s Belfast shot, fantasy adventure ‘City of Ember’, released in 2008, shading it on credit significance.

Mark Mulholland, despite his inventory of inconsequential screen roles, was undeniably superior to the product and on stage he was seldom found wanting, an instinctive actor who perhaps reaped less than he deserved.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Country Boy(1977) Arts Theatre, Belfast

– Affluence(1981) Arts Theatre, Belfast

– A Streetcar Named Desire(1984) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Northern Star(1984) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Over the Bridge(1990) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Right Again Barnum(1996) Arts Theatre, Belfast

Film

– The Boxer(1997)

– A Love Divided(1999)

– Miss Conception(2008)

TV

– Lorna(1987)

– Sailortown(1993)

 

 

Gerard Murphy

 

Born Newry 14th October 1948

Died Cambridge, England 26th August 2013

Wistful and deliberate character actor and sometime theatre director, who was a constant member of Newry’s Newpoint Players from his mid- teens.

Indeed he made his debut with them in 1965 in ‘ The Hearts A Wonder’, a musical version of Synge’s ‘The Playboy Of The Western World’.

He made an early professional stage appearance in 1967 at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, then based in Derryvolgie Avenue, in ‘The Tragedy of King Richard II and at the new venue in Ridgeway Street in 1972, played Myles in Joe O’Donnell’s comedy ‘The Lads.’ That same year he had a high profile introduction to television, when cast as John Hoyle in an episode of the iconic police drama series ‘Z Cars’.

His first brush with the London stage came in 1973, taking minor roles in two plays, Trevor Nunn’s ‘The Romans’ at the Aldwych and David Rudkin’s ‘Cries From the Basement’ at The Place.

During the mid to late seventies he appeared in numerous productions with Glasgow Citizens Theatre, including ‘The Changeling’ 1976, ‘The Country Wife’, ‘Chinchilla’ and was a gloriously over the top Miss Prism in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, all 1977.

Then followed some low key television work, the best of which was his role of Rory O’Riordan in an adaptation of Howard Spring’s novel ‘My Son My Son’ in 1979 and a year later enjoyed a higher cast rating in a brace of  plays for the BBC ‘s Playhouse series.

Notable stage roles in the early eighties included, Johnny Boyle in the RSC production of ‘Juno and the Paycock’ at the Aldwych 1980 and the Young Shepherd in ‘The Winters Tale’ at the RST in 1981. Two undoubted career highpoints were his roles in ‘Henry IV’, the Barbican’s inaugural production in 1982 and ‘Two Noble Kinsmen’ with the RSC, the opening play at the reborn Swan Theatre in 1986.

His first big screen appearance was as Father Larkin in writer/director Barbara Rennie’s now forgotten comedy drama, ‘Sacred Hearts’ 1985 but unbelievable as it may have seemed then, he would have to wait almost ten years for his next film role. In the interim he did some sterling work on stage with the RSC, appearing at the Barbican as Oberon in ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’, an acutely observed Faustus in ‘Dr Faustus’ at the Swan and on a rare visit to Belfast, appeared at the Arts Theatre in Moliere’s ‘The School for Wives’ all 1989.

In the nineties he worked primarily in theatre, with prominent roles in ‘ The Theban Plays’ at the Barbican 1991, ‘Volpone’ for the Birmingham Rep in 1993 and in a return to the Citizens Theatre in 1998, played a rather revved up ‘Macbeth’, in a peculiarly condensed version of the Scottish play.

His second film appearance came in the much maligned blockbuster ‘Water World’ 1996, starring Kevin Costner, in which he had his fair share of screen time as Nord, strong arm man of Dennis Hopper’s arch villain, Deacon.

On television in 1999 he played Planchet in director Patrick Lau’s two season series, ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ and worked with Lau again as the surly Detective Inspector Bracken in the medi-cop drama series ‘McCallum’, in a cast which also featured Ulster born Zara Turner, as forensic pathologist Dr Angela Moloney.

At Manchester Royal Exchange in 2001, he produced a matchless performance as tenant farmer Phil Hogan in Eugene O’Neill’s classic play ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’ and was outstanding as George, opposite Clare Higgins in Edward Albee’s ‘ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? ‘ at Bristol Old Vic in 2002.

In 2005 he increased his film tally to three, when he took the role of Judge Faden in director Christopher Nolan’s unremarkable ‘Batman Begins’ but at least saw his name on the credit list with  another Ulster actor, Liam Neeson. Showing more than a little dexterity, he took to the stage at the Crucible in Sheffield in 2006, playing Samuel Byck in the Stephen Sondheim musical ‘Assassins’, ably directed by Nikolai Foster, with whom he was reunited when he appeared as Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s ‘Amadeus’ at the same venue in 2007.

Theatre again assumed prominence during 2008/10, with choice roles in ‘Turandot’, Bertolt Brecht’s final but unfinished play presented at the Hampstead Theatre, in which he was resplendent as The Emperor of China’ and as the heartless Sergeant Browne in Leo Butler’s 18th century Limerick set, ‘I’ll Be the Devil’, an RSC commission performed at the Tricycle Theatre, London, both 2008.

At the Festival Theatre, Chichester in 2010, in Peter Hall’s adaptation of Sheridan’s comedy of manners, ‘The Rivals’, he produced a delineated performance as the indigent Irish baronet Sir Lucius O’Trigger, in a cast featuring former’ To the Manor Born’ sparring partners , Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles. In June 2012 and despite his terminal illness, he returned to one of his favourite venues, the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, encompassing the stage in Beckett’s 1957, one act solo play, ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’, directed by Dominic Hill.

Gerard Murphy was a predestined thespian, who needed no encouragement to cut a laudable swathe in a theatre career which crossed five decades. He was however unable to establish even a functional film equivalent, which  confined his star to a cultured and arguably more aesthetically rewarding world.

Other Theatre Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Man Of La Mancha(1972) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Chinchilla(1977) Glasgow Citizens Theatre

-The Witch Of Edmonton(1981) RSC The Other Place, Stratford

-Phedra(1984) Old Vic, London

-The Glass Menagerie(1985) Greenwich Theatre, London

-The Silver King(1986) Swan Theatre, Stratford

-The Manchurian Candidate(1990) Theatre Royal, Bath

-One Of These Days(2006) RSC The Cube, Stratford

-Henry V(2007) Royal Exchange, Manchester

-London Assurance(2008) Watermill Theatre, Newbury

-King Lear(2009) Tour

-The History Boys(2010) Tour.

Film

-Pumpgirl(2009)

-The Comedian(2012)

TV  

-Catchpenny Twist(1977)

-Billy Boy(1982)

-Aunt Suzanne(1984)

-Vanity Fair(1998)

-I Was A Rat(2001)

-Waking The Dead(2005)

-Trial And Retribution(2005)

-Dalziel And Pascoe(2007)

-Spooks(2009)

 

 

J.J. Murphy

 

Born Belfast 1928

Died Belfast 8th August 2014

Imperishable and unashamed stage actor, whose career spanned eight decades, beginning in the late forties at the Group Theatre, Belfast. As a wide-eyed nineteen year old in 1947, he enrolled at the Group Theatre School of Acting, studying in the midst of the exalted Group Players.

It would be the early fifties before he was recruited as a professional actor and even then he was to find parts of any consequence hard to come by. Indeed his credits were a little better than ancilliary, illustrated by his role of a press photographer in the premiere of St John Greer Ervine’s intricate comedy, ‘Ballyfarland’s Festival’ in 1953. He fared a little better as Cathal McNulty in another comedy, Joseph Tomelty’s neatly observed ‘Is the Priest at Home?’, with Harold Goldblatt as the clerical fulcrum, Father Malan.

Following the forced expiration of the Group Players in 1959, he found regular work in the mid sixties with the Sam Cree farce ensemble, then resident in the Arts Theatre, Belfast. Such froth included ‘Cupid Wore Skirts’ 1965, ‘Widows Paradise’ 1966 and ‘Don’t Tell the Wife’in 1967. At the same theatre also in 1967, he appeared in the first of two Roger Kelly comedies, ‘The Boys From U.S.A.’, which featured a debut making Frances Tomelty and the following year ‘The Gay Wolf’, a two hander with former Group stalwart Maurice O’Callaghan. He moved to the newly opened Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 1969, appearing in several productions that year, most notably in the title role of Ben Jonson’s most successful comedy, ‘The Alchemist’, directed by Robert Armstrong.

In the seventies he worked almost exclusively with the Lyric Players, registering strong performances in a series of surreal pieces by Cork born writer in residence, Patrick Galvin. The emotive ‘Nightfall to Belfast’ in 1973 was followed by the late 19^th century Tipperary set drama ‘The Last Burning’ 1974 and the tragi-comic ‘We Do It for Love’ 1975.

Other significant work at the Lyric in the seventies saw him as Captain in Tom Coffey’s constricted and neglected ‘It Would Be Funny…’ 1975 and as Father Mullarkey in Mary McCarthy’s teasing satire ‘Once A Catholic’, 1975, in a cast which included Ciaran Hinds and Stella McCusker. In 1976 he joined Ulster Television, becoming a familiar face as a continuity announcer, working at the station until 1984.

Following his UTV appointment he was cast in two leading and memorable roles at the Lyric, which would arguably be considered among his finest work. He played the assiduous, flawed and doomed Joe Keller in Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons’ in 1977 and the  drunken malingerer ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle in Sean O’Casey’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ 1979. Still active in the Lyric in the early eighties, he was effectively cast as Professor Van Helsing in Warren Graves’ ‘The Death of Dracula’ 1980 and gave a masterful performance as sagacious Belfast dock worker, Leg McNamara, in Martin Lynch’s influential ‘Dockers’ in 1981.

He reunited with Patrick Galvin that year in the writer’s final play for the Lyric, an operetta, ‘My Silver Bird’ and in 1984, aged fifty six, made his low key introduction to the big screen in director Pat O’Connor’s Irish produced ‘Cal’, starring Helen Mirren and fellow neophyte John Lynch. Unimpressed possibly with this experience, he would not appear again on screen for another fifteen years. Theatre output from the mid eighties decreased and produced little of substance, with the exception of Aodhan Madden’s drama, ‘The Private Death of a Queen’, presented at the Eblana as part of the 1986 Dublin Theatre Festival.

In the nineties he appeared infrequently on stage, although he did have an opportunity to shine, taking dual roles in the 1997 Lyric Theatre production of the Michael McKnight/ Paddy Scully adaptation of Brian Moore’s uncompromising castigation of the Irish catholic educational system, ‘The Feast of Lupercal’. A second film role, again minor, came in director Alan Parker’s acclaimed ‘Angela’s Ashes’, a faithful translation of Frank McCourt’s reminiscences of his painful and impoverished Limerick childhood in the 1930s/40s.

He was relatively more active, particularly on screen in the early 2000’s, playing a villager in Spike Milligan’s manic Irish romp, ‘Puckoon’ 2002 and a fleeting cameo in writer/director Terry Loane’s comedy/drama, ‘Mickybo and Me’ in 2004. His last stage appearance was fittingly in a 2011 Centre Stage revival of Joseph Tomelty’s 1948 classic, ‘All Souls Night’, which opened at the Playhouse Theatre, Derry and ended with a two week run at the Lyric in Belfast.

His staggered and limited film career ended with a supporting roles in writer/director Stephen Don’s shoestring budget, Belfast set thriller, ‘Faraway’ in 2013 and at the other end of the financial spectrum, Gary Shore’s epic, ‘Dracula Untold’ in 2014. JJ Murphy was one of the last links to the celebrated Group Players, a dexterous character actor, who later became an invaluable member of the natural successor and keeper of the flame, the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.

Other Theatre credits:

-Family Fever(1968) Arts Theatre, Belfast

-Stop it Nurse(1968) Arts Theatre, Belfast

-The Field(1969) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Luther(1969) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Guests(1974) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Romersholm(1975) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-The Plough and the Stars(1977) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Uncle Vanya(1978) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Whose Life is it Anyway ?(1979) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Affluence(1980) Tour

-The Tempest(1980) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Spring Awakening(1980) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-The Drums of Father Ned(1981) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Convictions(2000) Courthouse, Belfast.

 

 

Wesley Murphy

 

Born Belfast 1939

Enduring, peripheral screen actor, who registered infinitely better stage successes in a long career, which began in his teens at the New Theatre, Bangor in 1955, under English born actor/director Margery Mason. He would later gain invaluable experience, appearing at Tyrone Guthrie’s annual Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival in 1958, making his debut in ‘Henry IV, Part 1

His Canadian sojourn also included  a period with an experimental theatre company based in Toronto, with whom he appeared in enthusiastic but shoestring productions such as Chekhov’s ‘The Boor’ and Lorca’s ‘Don Perlimplin’, both 1959. He returned in his teens  to Britain at the beginning of the sixties and made his television introduction in a walk-on role as 2nd Airman in the Bond prototype series ‘Dangerman’ 1961.

Screen work in the early sixties was hardly fast and furious and afforded him only minor parts in the series ‘Sir Francis Drake’ 1962, ‘The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling’ 1964, ‘Londoners’ 1965 and the ‘Crane ‘ spin-off ‘Orlando’1967, starring Belfast born Sam Kydd. Later in the decade his television appearances were almost exclusively confined to the popular Teleplay format screened on a regular basis by both BBC and ITV, with production titles as obvious as Theatre 625, The Wednesday Play, ITV Playhouse and Play for Today.

In a BBC Play of the Month in 1969 he took a prominent role as George Macken in Dominic Behan’s oblique anti-war piece ‘The Patriot Game’, which also featured Belfast based stage veteran Elizabeth Begley.

He was out of luck on screen during the seventies, with the exception of an also- starring role in Eugene McCabe’s ‘Cancer’, the first of his celebrated ‘Victims’ trilogy broadcast on RTE in 1973, in which he co-starred with JG. Devlin. At the Lyric Theatre Belfast in 1981 he headed a cast of established players in the title role of a functional production of ‘Julius Caesar’ and in 1984, some twenty four years into his career, he at last landed his first film part. Unfortunately it was a low-key introduction credited as Donovan in director Alan Gibson’s Canadian set drama ‘Martin’s Day’, written by Volker Boehm and starring Richard Harris as prison escapee and reluctant kidnapper Martin Steckart.

Later in the eighties he returned to the Lyric for two plays in quick succession, playing The Colonel in the premiere of Robin Glendinning’s ‘The Culture Vultures’ in October 1988 and in December appeared as Ebenezer Scrooge in John Boyd’s entertaining re-working of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. Cameo roles in works by two rising stars of the Irish literary firmament, Dermot Bolger and Sebastian Barry, brought him to the Abbey Theatre in 1990. In Bolger’s frantic Dublin set comedy ‘Blinded by the Light’, he was a perfectly rounded Scottish Gentleman and in Barry’s convoluted, religion soaked drama ‘Prayers of Sherkin’, he played with relish, god fearing shop-keeper Stephen Pearse.

During the nineties he worked periodically in films and television, most notably in writer/director Johnny Gogan’s Irish produced big screen comedy ‘The Bargain Shop’ 1992 and the same year had a miniscule role as a landlord in Ron Howard’s misguided Cruise/Kidman vehicle ‘Far and Away’.

Television work amounted to secondary appearances in director Kevin Connor’s commendable ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ 1995, a fleeting guest credit in an  episode of ‘Ballykissangel’ 1997 and a bit part as Maurice in the Dublin crime drama ‘Vicious Circle’ 1999. In Gary Mitchell’s uncompromising ‘As the Beast Sleeps’, which premiered at the Abbey in 1998, he was particularly convincing as loyalist politician Alec, sitting uncomfortably between new found legitimacy and links to his nefarious past.

From 2000 his screen work rate slowed to very occasional and indeed but for some minor involvement in two episodes of writer Michael Hirst’s factually incautious period drama ‘The Tudors’ in 2009, his recognition level would have been considered dangerously low.

Wesley Murphy’s career, which began over fifty years ago, gave him few opportunities to make a major breakthrough, but did for most of that time provide an unremitting interest in all available media.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

– The Poltergeist(1955) Empire Theatre, Belfast

– The Quare Fellow(1967) Queens Theatre, Hornchurch

– The Magistrate(1970) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– HadrianVII(1995) Chichester Festival Theatre

TV

-The Jazz Age(1968)

-Elizabeth R.(1971)

-Brett(1971)

-Hine(1975)

-The Sweeney(1975)

-The Treaty(1991)

-St. Ives(1998)

-Das Licht von Afrika(2003)

-The Clinic(2005)

 

 

Jenn Murray

 

Born Belfast 1^st January 1986

Intuitive, largely screen oriented actor, a Trinity College, Dublin graduate in Drama and Film Studies, whose in-house stage appearances included ‘Vinegar Joe’, ‘A Full Moon in March’, ‘At the Hawk’s Well’ and in her final year, 2007, ‘Phaedra: After Racine’, Frank McGuinness’ insightful re-working of Europides’ classic Greek tragedy.

She made her professional debut that same year in the Livin’ Dred Theatre Company’s touring production of Tom Murphy’s 1970s Galway set comedy/drama, ‘Conversations on a Homecoming’, taking the role of wistful young barmaid Anne.

Her first screen appearance was a propitious title role casting in writer/director Agnes Merlet’s 2008 psychological drama ‘Dorothy Mills’, for which she received an IFTA Best Actress nomination in 2009.

On stage at the Project Arts Centre during the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2008, she played Maeve in Belinda McKeon’s ‘Two Houses’, presented in tandem with Philip McMahon’s ‘Investment Potential’, both two-handers, combining as ‘Love 2.0’, which also featured Belfast born Kathy Kiera Clarke.

Between 2009/11, her net efforts were confined exclusively to the small screen. The most noteworthy were arguably a guest role as the orphaned Susan, in director Nick Copus’ mini-series adaptation of John Wyndham’s post apocalyptic, ‘The Day of the Triffids’ in 2009 and a five episode run as Natalie in in the one season, but BAFTA winning supernatural drama ‘The Fades’ in 2011.

A second big screen role in 2012 saw her co-star as Maria, opposite Rafe Spall’s alien, Joe, in Alan Brennan’s Irish produced sci-fi comedy ‘Earthbound’. A year later she returned to a decent spell of work in Billy Ivory’s Nottingham set comedy/drama series ‘Truckers’, as the young transport manager Michelle Truss, with Stephen Tompkinson starring as the woebegone, veteran long distance driver, Malachi Davies.

Her three film roles during 2014/15 were unremarkable, save for a starring credit as the seriously disturbed, eponymous Angel, in Ray Burdis’ horror/thriller ‘Angel’ aka ‘Still Waters’, released in 2015. A year later director David Yates cast her as Chastity Barebone in J. K. Rowling’s addition to the Harry Potter series, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’, starring Eddie Redmayne.  In 2021 at the Irish Repertory Theatre, New York, she produced a superlative solo performance in Eimear McBride’s dark and jarring ‘A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing’, directed with precision by Nicola Murphy. A veritable film/television devotee with qualified success, Jenn Murray’s shortcoming it seems is her decidedly finite stage career, an imbalance awaiting address.

Other Film and TV credits:

Film

-Testament of Youth(2014)

-Brooklyn(2015)

-Love & Friendship(2016)

-Maleficent: Mistress of Evil(2019)

TV

-The Clinic(2008)

-The Bill(2009)

-Lewis(2010)

 

 

Des McAleer

Born Belfast 25th May 1952

Composed and accomplished character actor with a more than respectable CV, who began his professional career with the Lyric Players in Belfast during the seventies. He made an early appearance as Harry Percy(Hotspur) in ‘Henry IV Part I, alongside an equally inexperienced Liam Neeson as his uncle, Thomas Percy. The demands of the thriving repertory company were made evident to him during his first year, with appearances in five further productions, most notably as Mike in Frank Dunne’s ‘The Rise and Fall of Barney Kerrigan’ and Lennox Robinson’s comedy, ‘The White Headed Boy’.

In 1978 he played Bill Derry in Dominic Behan’s well constructed drama ‘Europe’, set in a Belfast hotel during the troubles and received good notices in Sam Thompson’s often neglected ‘The Evangelist’. He produced another excellent performance as Manuel Rodriguez, in Joseph Long’s ‘The Second Life of Tatenberg Camp’ and demonstrated his suitability for the classics in ‘The Tempest’, both 1979. In the early eighties he toured with the Druid Theatre Company in RB Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’ 1983 and in 1984 appeared in two translated Field Day productions, Tom Paulin’s ‘The Riot Act’ and Derek Mahon’s ‘High Time’, both presented at the Guildhall in Derry.

A walk-on part as a boatman marked his big screen entrance in writer/director Bill Miskelly’s minuscule budget drama ‘The Schooner’, released in 1983. His first television appearances were as James Hope in writer/director Pat Murphy’s ‘Anne Devlin’ 1984, with Brid Brennan in the title role and the same year director Mike Leigh cast him as Eugene, in his Belfast set, religious drama, ‘Four Days in July’.

Significant stage work in the late eighties included the 1988 Abbey Theatre production of Frank McGuinness’, ‘Carthaginians’ and Billy Roche’s ‘Poor Beast in the Rain’, at the Bush Theatre London in 1989.

His theatre output thinned out during the early nineties due to increasing screen commitments, but he still managed a Field Day appearance in the Stephen Rea directed ‘The Cure at Troy’, at the Guildhall Derry in 1990 and a second Billy Roche play, ‘Belfry’, again at the Bush Theatre in 1991. From 1990 his screen credits included Ken Loach’s Ulster political thriller ‘Hidden Agenda’ 1990, the horse racing series ‘Trainer’ 1991 and in 1993 he reprised his stage roles in the television adaptations of ‘Poor Beast in the Rain’ and ‘Belfry’.

In writer Timothy Prager’s one season television comedy series ‘Safe and Sound’ 1996, he played Belfast motor mechanic Tommy Delaney opposite business partner Dougy Flynn played by Donegal born Sean McGinley, which despite their best efforts failed on most counts. He fared a little better in writer/director Mary McGuckian’s post 1994 ceasefire film ‘This Is the Sea’ 1997, in which he was scrupulously credible as an RUC Inspector and boasted a cast headed by Richard Harris and Gabriel Byrne. He experienced a disappointing return to high profile theatre in 1997, in the Abbey’s production of Brian Friel’s bloodless drama, ‘Give Me Your Answer, Do!’, valiantly holding his own as novelist Garret Fitzmaurice and saw out the decade with cameos in two feature films, Roger Michell’s ‘Titanic Town’ 1998 and Frank McCourt’s emotive ‘Angela’s Ashes’ 1999.

In 2000 he appeared with the RSC at the Swan in Stratford and the subsequent transfer to the Barbican, in Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’, swopping his Druid Theatre role for the more suitable Sir Lucius O’Trigger and at the Barbican a year later, was Friar Laurence in Michael Boyd’s production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

On screen in 2000 he played Jimmy Keaveney in the Veronica Guerin inspired Dublin crime drama, ‘When the Sky Falls’ and the same year took a minor role in the American produced, Belfast set comedy, ‘An Everlasting Piece’. A more successful period in theatre followed and included the roles of Walter in Arthur Miller’s ‘ The Price’ at the Tricycle Theatre, London in 2002 and Malvolio in the English Touring Theatre production of ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Theatre Royal, York, 2004. His quiescent screen image did not improve during this period, with further supplementary roles in the French produced thriller ‘Deadlines’ 2004, the David Jason television comedy drama, ‘Diamond Geezer’ 2005 and Chris Cook’s frivolous football frolic, ‘The Penalty King’ 2006.

Despite the dearth of worthwhile film and television work, the situation was never as desperate in theatre, as he proved, with leading roles in Sharit Samed’s ‘Pictures of Clay’ at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2005 and Moliere’s ‘Tartuffe’ at the Watermill, Newbury in 2006. Towards the end of the decade he enjoyed a busy period on both stage and screen. This included an incisive portrayal of acclaimed football manager Matt Busby in writer Terry Cafolla’s ‘ Best: His Mother’s Son ‘ 2007 and a laudable credit as old retainer Joseph in Peter Bowker’s worthy adaptation of ‘ Wuthering Heights’ in 2009. Notable theatre appearances were his Inspector Hubbard, in a 2009 touring production of Frederick Knott’s ‘ Dial M for Murder ‘ and an unerring performance as the penurious foreman Dennis Hunter in Robert Tressell’s socialist parable, ‘ The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists ‘, presented at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester in 2010.

Modest screen work during 2012/15, was emphatically eclipsed by his first-rate stage playing, most notably his self-serving skiver, ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle, opposite Niamh Cusack in a touring production of Juno and the Paycock in 2014. He was back in Belfast that year, marvellous as the father S.B. O’Donnell in Brian Friel’s masterful tragicomedy, ‘Philadelphia Here I Come!’, staged at the Lyric Theatre and directed by Andrew Flynn. In 2015 he was part of the ensemble for the Young Chekhov season at Chichester Festival Theatre, appearing in three plays,’ The Seagull’,  ‘Ivanov’ and ‘Platonov’, later transferring to the National Theatre. In 2016 he appeared as fisherman Ned Hanlon in all five episodes of the  WW2, rural Ulster drama ‘My Mother and Other Strangers’ and in another series a year later took a small guest role in Peter Morgan’s lavish, Netflix produced ‘The Crown’. He was soon back on form though as Uncle Pat Carney in Jez Butterworth’s acclaimed 1981, Co Armagh set ‘The Ferryman’, which opened at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs in April 2017.

His somewhat restrained screen career aside, Des McAleer has flourished unabashed on stage from his  a skilful performer who rarely disappointed.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– The Street (1977) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– The Mandrake (1979) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

– Macbeth(1987) Theatre Royal, Bath

– Fanshen (1988) NT Cottesloe Theatre, London

– The Playboy of the Western World(1994) Almeida Theatre, London

– The Weir (1997) Royal Court, London

– Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1999) Young Vic, London

– War and Peace (2008) Hampstead Theatre, London

– Molly Sweeney(2010) Curve Theatre, Leicester

– Paisley and Me(2012) Grand Opera House, Belfast

Film

– Butterfly Kiss (1995)

– My Week with Marilyn (2011)

– How I Live Now(2013)

– The Children Act(2017)

TV

– Out of Tune (1985)

– A Handful of Stars (1993)

– Picking Up the Pieces (1998)

– Kings in Grass Castles (1998)

– Silent Witness (2004)

– Rebus (2007)

– Wuthering Heights (2008)

– Field of Blood(2013)

– Death and Nightingales(2018)

– Hope Street(2021)

 

 

Patrick McAlinney

 

Born Omagh 9th November 1913

Died Milton Mowbray 22nd August 1990

Bucolic and perceptive stage and screen actor, who as a member of the Omagh Players was headhunted by Sir Tyrone Guthrie for his Ulster troupe during the 1951 Festival Of Britain, making his London debut at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in George Shiels’ ‘The Passing Day’. On his return he joined the Ulster Group Theatre, first appearing as Councillor James Luke JP, in St John Ervine’s ‘My Brother Tom’ in 1952 and the same year appeared in his first film role, as Reverend Soater, in director Lewis Gilbert’s comedy ‘Time Gentlemen Please’.

He stayed with the Group for two years, appearing in several memorable productions, including Patrick Riddell’s ‘The House of Mallon 1952, ‘A Lock of the General’s Hair’ 1953, ‘Boyd’s Shop’ 1954 and Joseph Tomelty’s ‘Is the Priest at Home?’ 1954. He had two further uncredited film roles during his Group Theatre tenure, before his 1954 Edinburgh Festival triumph as Malachi Stack, in Thornton Wilder’s ‘The Matchmaker’ and subsequent Broadway debut at the Royal Booth Theatre in the same play, which ran for almost eighteen months until 1955. Better film work in the late fifties included ‘A Night to Remember’ 1958, ‘Shake Hands With the Devil’ 1959 and in 1961 he appeared in his first television role, cast as Warden, in an episode of the series ‘One Step Beyond’. Also that year in a rare Dublin theatre outing, he appeared in Cyril Cusack’s ‘The Temptation of Mr O’ at the Olympia and was prominent in a huge cast which included Cusack himself in the title role.

During a hectic spell on screen he appeared in four films, all in minor roles, the best of which was arguably ‘The Return of a Stranger’ 1962, starring the downwardly mobile Canadian, John Ireland and in 1964 found himself unsurprisingly typecast as Tickler Murphy in ‘Coronation Street’, which mercifully for him lasted only for a handful of episodes. Over the next few years he worked almost exclusively on television, with multiple appearances on ‘Z Cars’ and ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ among others, playing an assortment of token Irish characters. His now occasional stage work provided him with a median credit in the weighty ‘ Hadrian VII ‘ at the Mermaid Theatre, London in 1967 and in 1968 he had the central role in John D. Stewart’s ‘ Boatman Do Not Tarry ‘, a  UTV production which was broadcast nationally as part of ITVs Playhouse series.  Significant screen output in the seventies was scant and only his press photographer role in director Richard Donner’s ‘The Omen’ 1976, redeemed an unexpected and lacklustre period. One of his last contributions to television was as Dr Daley, the alcoholic best friend of Arthur Lowe’s catholic priest Father Duddleswell, in the 1950s set comedy series ‘Bless Me Father’, which ran from 1978/81.

1981 was to prove his last year as a professional actor and he bowed out as he began, on stage, appearing in the title role of ‘The Magic Grandad’ at the Arts Theatre London and in the summer of that year joined old friend JG Devlin in Wesley Burrowes’ Strangford set comedy ‘Affluence’ at the Arts in Belfast, where both gave a nightly masterclassain the art of scene stealing. Patrick McAlinney was another example of tunnel vision casting, identified and labelled Irish type, he was seldom afforded the opportunity of choice and reluctantly but always professionally, accepted his lot.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Ballyfarland’s Festival (1953) Group Theatre, Belfast

– Farewell, Farewell, Eugene (1959) Garrick Theatre, London

– Man and Superman (1966) Vaudeville Theatre, London

Film

– The Pot Carriers (1962)

– Gold is Where You Find It (1968)

– Revenge (1971)

TV

– The World of Tim Frazer (1961)

– Special Branch (1973)

– Kizzy (1976)

– Butterflies (1978)

 

John McBride

 

 

 

 

 

 

Born Belfast 22nd June 1899

Died Belfast 2nd June 1982

Understated stage and screen character actor, whose most enduring role was in neither medium, but who became a Saturday night radio star during the years 1949/1955.

He began his acting career with Lisburn British Legion Dramatic Society in 1927 and appeared with Richard Hayward and J.R. Mageean in several Ulster Literary Theatre revival productions, such as Rutherford Mayne’s ‘The Drone’ and Gerald McNamara’s ‘Thompson in Tir-Na-N-Og’ and ‘The Throwbacks’, all performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in the company’s final year, 1934.

He turned professional comparatively late in life, fortuitously in the same year, 1948, his friend, actor and writer Joseph Tomelty was commissioned by the BBC N.I. Home Service to formulate a script schedule for his proposed comedy show ‘The McCooey’s’. McBride was mooted as Sammy, the father of the eponymous, ordinary Belfast family, Mina Dornan as his wife Maggie and J.G. Devlin, eight years McBride’s junior, as the Granda. Tomelty’s character, the local grocer Bobby Greer, made irregular appearances in what became a local broadcasting sensation, from its inaugural transmission on 13^th May 1949.

In 1951 he was part of a large contingent of Group Theatre Players, who under the direction of Tyrone Guthrie and the banner of the N.I. Ireland Festival Company, travelled to London for a series of plays in celebration of the Festival of Britain. In early April of that year he appeared as Chas Quinn in John D. Stewart’s comedy/drama ‘Danger Men Working’ and later the same month took a supporting role in Jack Loudan’s adaptation of Charles Shadwell’s ‘The Sham Prince’, both staged at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. The company returned to London in July 1951 for George Shiels’ social tragedy ‘The Passing Day’, with McBride as Samson the grave digger and Joseph Tomelty as the miserly shopkeeper John Fibbs.

His film debut in 1953 was undemanding, a low-key credit as Mick in C.M. Pennington-Richards’ curious rural Irish set comedy ‘The Oracle’, aka ‘The Horse’s Mouth’, starring Robert Beatty and Virginia McKenna, with a decent role for Joseph Tomelty as village postmaster Terry Roche.

Although not in the original production of Gerard McLarnon’s contentious piece ‘The Bonfire’, rejected by the Group’s Board of Directors and subsequently presented at the Grand Opera House, Belfast in August 1958, McBride did make the cast of the Edinburgh Festival presentation of the play staged at the Royal Lyceum Theatre a few weeks later.

A second and more destructive controversy enveloped the Group in 1959, with yet another board interference, this time aggressively challenging the artistic content of Sam Thompson’s Belfast shipyard exposition, ‘Over the Bridge’. James Ellis the recently appointed Artistic Director, who also appeared in ‘The Bonfire’, fought in vain against what proved to be an illiberal, immovable object. Resignations followed, the illustrious Group Players were effectively no more, Thompson’s play eventually premiered at the Empire Theatre, Belfast on January 26^th 1960, under the direction of James Ellis, with John McBride as the bible thumping Billy Morgan.

A second screen appearance in 1961 was a little more substantial than his first, playing Uncle Theo in Stewart Love’s television play ‘The Randy Dandy’, another with a Belfast shipyard backdrop, starring an inspired James Ellis as the discontented hero Dandy Jordan. He followed this with a sustained period of television work in 1963, appearing most notably as Mr Macrory in four episodes of the prototype medical soap, ‘Emergency-Ward 10’. He then took a minor role as Jackson in the second of Stewart Love’s Belfast shipyard dramas, ‘The Big Donkey’, starring Tom Bell, with a supporting cast brimful of ex- Group Players.

At the Grove Theatre, Belfast in 1965 he joined Harold Goldblatt’s occasional Ulster Theatre Company for a short run in Joseph Tomelty’s final play, ‘A Year in Marlfield’, a sequel to his 1954 work ‘Is the Priest at Home?’.

In 1967 he landed a recurring credit as Reilly in several episodes of the implacable police drama series ‘Z Cars’ and the following year played farmer William Henry Doak in an Ulster Theatre Company production of St. John Greer Ervine’s evergreen comedy ‘Boyd’s Shop’, directed by Harold Goldblatt at the Grove Theatre, Belfast, presented as part of that year’s Queen’s Festival. The cast included Joe McPartland as Andrew Boyd, Elizabeth Begley as Carrie and Sam Thompson’s son Warren as Andy Haveron.

In 1969, after its premiere at the Grove Theatre, Belfast, Goldblatt took the company to the Abbey Theatre, Dublin for George Shiels’ classic melodrama ‘Macook’s Corner’, a revision of his 1938 play ‘Neale Maquade’, directed by Tyrone Guthrie with McBride as John Lilly and J.G. Devlin as the scheming Neale Macook.

Screen work was minimal in the seventies and amounted to a handful of offers, involving archetypal Ulster types which barely raised a sweat. He was fervent Orangeman, Lambeg Billy in Dominic Behan’s 1912 anti- Home Rule piece, ‘Carson County’, a BBC Play for Today in 1972 and played Protestant farmer Gawlay in Eugene McCabe’s ‘Cancer’, the first of his Victims trilogy, set in Fermanagh in the early years of the troubles, directed by Deirdre Friel and screened by RTE in 1973. His last screen contribution was a cameo as Granda, in Ron Hutchinson’s black comedy ‘The Last Window Cleaner’, a BBC television play in February 1979, starring Patrick Magee, Kate Thompson and featured an emerging Liam Neeson as the namelessly titled Himself.

John McBride, although not a constitutive member of the Group Players, was sustained by association and from his earliest experiences in amateur theatre, was an earnest contributor across all media for over fifty years.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

-Moodie in Manitoba(1969) Grove Theatre, Belfast

TV

-Suspense(1963)

-Theatre 625(1965/68)

-The Revenue Men(1967)

-Boatman Do Not Tarry(1968)

 

 

Leo McCabe

 

Born Belfast 1914

Died Dublin 23rd February 1986

Convivial actor/producer, who began his career aged twenty, as a bit part actor in Hollywood and with one or two exceptions, spent the thirties working in a series of uninspiring films. He made his uncredited debut in director Erle C. Kenton’s poolside comedy, ‘Search for Beauty’ 1934, which was basically a promotional vehicle for hunk of the day, Buster Crabbe. More routine film work quickly followed and included ‘The Painted Veil’ 1934 and ‘Cardinal Richelieu’ 1935, until a more significant opportunity came his way with the role of IRA man Donahue, in John Ford’s academy award winning ‘The Informer’ 1935. After that he was offered better quality projects, including director William Dieterle’s Florence Nightingale bio pic, ‘The White Angel’ and ‘Beloved Enemy’ with David Niven and Merle Oberon, both 1936.

His American swansong was John Stahl’s ‘Parnell’ 1937, in which he played a small role as an M.P.and featured the then king of Hollywood, Clark Gable and just before his return to Britain in 1938, he travelled to New York for what was a grand theatre send-off, appearing at St James’ on Broadway in ‘Empress of Destiny’. On his arrival in Ireland later that year he found work almost immediately, appearing in the Macliammor/Edwards production of ‘The Unguarded Hour’ at the Gate Theatre Dublin and immersed himself in the financially stifled world of British cinema with roles in such tame fare as ‘Ah Wilderness’ 1938 and ‘Spreading the News’ 1939. At the beginning of the war he returned to live in Ireland and worked periodically in Dublin theatre, appearing with Belfast born Eithne Dunne at the Olympia in 1944 but despite his cinematic past, he unable to establish a persona solid enough to flourish on the Irish stage.

In the early fifties he launched his second career, when he and fellow actor Stanley Illsley became theatrical co-producers and working principally from the Olympia, created a populist alternative world of variety shows. His tenure at the Olympia included two rare stage appearances, both starring roles, in M.A.Fraser’s ‘The Land is Bright’ 1955 and James Cheasty’s melodrama ‘Francey’ 1962. Also that year he accepted the role of Doctor Flyn, in director Arthur Driefuss’ film adaptation of Brendan Behan’s ‘The Quare Fellow’, which ironically was rejected by the management of the Olympia in 1954. In 1964, after thirteen years as a producer, he declared himself available for acting assignments and was soon appearing on screen, in roles such as Finn McKenna in the new early evening soap ‘Crossroads’ and as Doctor Leger in Paul Henried’s sentimental musical drama, ‘Ballad in Blue’, which starred a bemused Ray Charles as himself.

Between 1964/71 he was seen only occasionally on television and in his final screen appearance played Father McNally, in ‘Michael Regan’, an episode of ‘Play for Today’ screened in 1971. Leo McCabe’s career, excluding his time as a theatre producer, was only interesting because of his youthful Hollywood experiences, a case of reaching for the stars without a rocket ship.

Other Theatre and Film credits:

Theatre

-The Cherry Orchard(1971) Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham

Film

– My Irish Molly (1938)

 

R.H. McCandless

Born Moville, Co. Donegal 28^th January 1884

Died 1971

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

Esteemed grandee of Ulster theatre, whose multifarious credentials can be traced back to a juvenile role in Charles Selby’s so called ‘sensation’ melodrama, ‘London by Night’, staged in 1896.

A prolific actor/director with the Northern Drama League, he made an early appearance as Doctor Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen’s ‘An Enemy of the People’, a production he also directed, presented at the Great Hall, Queen’s University, Belfast in 1923.

His enthusiasm knew no bounds, as around this time he and Robert Dempster co-founded the Carrickfergus Players, a company specializing in one-act plays in the vernacular. He both acted in and directed productions such as D. McLaughlin’s comedy ‘Andrew McIlfatrick, J.P.’ and Sam R. Bolton’s drama ‘Going West’, performed at Alexandra Park Avenue Hall, Carrickfergus in 1925.

Further notable credits with the Northern Drama League included his Captain Keeney in Eugene O’Neill’s seafaring drama ‘Ile’ in 1924 and in 1928, the drunkard, Old Eccles in T.W. Robertson’s three-act comedy/drama ‘Caste’, both at the Central Hall, Belfast. He was prominent with the company into the thirties, taking a leading role in August Strindberg’s naturalist tragedy ‘The Father’, also at the Central Hall in 1931.

In the mid- thirties he was recruited by Richard Hayward and J. R. Mageean’s Belfast Repertory Theatre Company, for the role of James Hope in Thomas Carnduff’s late 18^th century drama, ‘Castlereagh’, presented at the Empire Theatre, Belfast in January 1935. In 1936 he made the first of his two screen appearances, a median part as schoolmaster Gavin Grogan in director Donovan Pedelty’s homespun comedy/drama and so called quota quickie, ‘The Luck of the Irish’, starring the pioneering and industrious duo, Hayward and Mageean.

Following the formation of the Ulster Group Theatre in the winter of 1939/40 and after a short experimental period, the fledgling company would begin producing in earnest from the Ulster Minor Hall, Bedford Street, Belfast in September 1940. The tireless McCandless soon added his considerable experience to the assembled pool of talent, taking the central role of Andrew Boyd in St. John Greer Ervine’s ‘Boyd’s Shop’, a play the Group would revive time and again.

He later took supporting credits as Dendy Dale in Joseph Tomelty’s ‘Idolatry at Innishargie’ and as Mr Andrews in Patricia O’Connor’s light social drama ‘Highly Efficient’, both 1942. Further Group appearances during the forties included Hugh Quinn’s ‘Legacy of Delight’ 1943, the prolific George Shiels’ kitchen comedy, ‘The Old Broom’ 1944, featuring Elizabeth Begley and another Patricia O’Connor piece, ‘Select Vestry’ 1945.

The remainder of the forties saw him in a wide variety of genres, most notably as Sam Firkin in Shiels’ smuggling yarn, ‘Border Wine’ in 1946, boasting a strong cast of seasoned players, including Begley, Bee Duffell, Harold Goldblatt and Joseph Tomelty. In 1948 he was cast as Nick Warnock in Cecil Cree’s Belfast set, ‘The House That Jack Built’ and played magnificently against type as Clutie Cadoo in the hugely successful three act comedy, ‘A Title for Buxey’, which premiered on Christmas eve 1949.

In the early 1950s he was an automatic choice for the more senior roles available, excelling as embittered shopkeeper Joseph Cunningham in Harry Sinton Gibson’s rural Ulster family drama ‘The Square Peg’ 1950 and played the eponymous Tom Luke, good natured brother of the philandering Joe, a marvellous turn by Harold Goldblatt in St.John Greer Ervine’s country comedy ‘My Brother Tom’ in 1952.

His second and final screen appearance was as Rev. Arthur Patterson in Ervine’s perennial comedy ‘Boyd’s Shop’, a live studio production for BBC’s ‘Sunday Night Theatre’, broadcast in February 1954. In December of the same year, the Group presented Joseph Tomelty’s quirky comedy ‘April in Assagh’ at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, directed by J.R. Mageean, with McCandless as George Killops, in a cast of redoubtables, including Elizabeth Begley, J.G.Devlin, Kathleen Feenan and Tomelty himself.

Just past his seventy fifth birthday in that fateful, well documented final year of the Group Players, 1959, he found no shortage of acting and directing work. He was a most convincing Bishop in Patricia O’Connor’s compelling social drama ‘The Sparrow’s Fall’, a discernible Sylvester McCluggage in an entertaining adaptation of J.B. Priestley’s ‘When We Are Married’ and directed a revival of George Shiels’ comedy of financial mismanagement, ‘Quin’s Secret’.

He was still treading the boards into his eighties, joining longtime colleagues Elizabeth Begley, Harold Goldblatt et al, for the latter’s Ulster Theatre Company’s production of St.John Greer Ervine’s distinctive Ulster play, the comedy ‘Friends and Relations’, at the Grove Theatre, Belfast in 1967.

R.H.McCandless was incontestably a stage actor, a lifelong thespian who remarkably predated by almost a generation, the majority of his Group Theatre contemporaries.

Other Theatre Credits:

-Voice Out of Rama(1944)

-The Curse of the Lone Tree(1946)

-Stars of Brickfield Street(1948)

-Mountain Post(1948)

-Bannister’s Café(1949)

-Master Adams(1949)

-Fiddler’s Folly(1951)

-Signs and Wonders(1951)

-Arty(1951)

-Ballyfarland’s Festival(1953)

-The Farmer Wants a Wife(1955)

All Group Theatre, Belfast.

 

 

Martin(Marty)McCann

Allan McClelland

Born Dunmurry 31st December 1917

Died London 24th January 1989

Reserved but dexterous man of theatre, who was working for BBC radio in Belfast, when he first appeared on stage aged sixteen, as Raleigh in R.C. Sheriff’s ‘Journeys End’ at the short lived Playhouse Theatre, Belfast in 1937. He remained with the company under Harald Norway, until it’s demise in late 1939, when the legendary Ulster Group Theatre took up residence in 1940 and had spells with both the Group and Savoy players, then based at the Grand Opera House, during the war years. His first major break came when Alec Clunes, director of the Arts Theatre, London, invited him to join the theatre’s forthcoming festival and during 1944/45  appeared in several plays at the Theatre Royal, Bristol including  ‘ Hamlet ‘, ‘ The School for Scandal ‘ and ‘ The Constant Couple ‘ and  made his London stage debut at the Arts Theatre, as St John Hotchkiss  in ‘ Getting Married ‘ 1945.

In the latter half of the forties he was working primarily in theatre but had his first taste of the big screen, appearing uncredited in director Bernard Knowles’ period adventure yarn, ‘The Man Within’ 1947 and at the end of the decade produced and starred in his own play, ‘Call It Madness’, presented at the New Lindsay Theatre in 1949. Further stage work in the early fifties included, ‘The Ivory Tower’ at the Vaudeville Theatre London in 1950, a return to Belfast in 1951 with Tyrone Guthrie’s Festival of Britain Theatre Company and the same year appeared at the Ambassadors, London in another celebratory play, George Shiel’s ‘The Passing Day’.

A veritable landmark in his career was the creation of the role of Christopher Wren in Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, which opened at the Ambassadors in November 1952 and where for two years he was part of theatrical history in the making. In 1955 he made his television debut, playing Second Officer O’Mara in an episode of Douglas Fairbanks Presents and in 1958 landed more regular work as a prominent cast member in the series, ‘Private Investigator’.

In director Hugo Fregonese’s rather humdrum Indian jungle adventure, ‘Harry Black’ 1958, only his second film in ten years, he at least had a speaking part as a British officer, in a cast starring Stewart Granger and the chiselled, one dimensional Anthony Steel. During the early sixties he was able to find steady screen work, albeit at the bottom half of the credits and included roles in Joseph Losey’s sci- fi drama, ‘The Damned’ and Michael Winner’s crime thriller ‘West 11’, both 1963 and on television, guest-starred on series such as ‘The Avengers’ 1962/64. Quality work was also in short supply on stage, with the exception of a decent role in ‘Santa Cruz’ at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1966, although he did keep busy with radio and writing assignments throughout the decade.

He had another incidental role in writer/director Frank Pierson’s 1969 action thriller, ‘The Looking Glass War’ and was of course smothered by a strong Brit cast including Ralph Richardson, Anna Massey and Anthony Hopkins. After fifteen years his screen career was still waiting to take off and this was frustratingly consolidated when he accepted a part in the dire sex comedy, ‘On The Game’ 1973 and only rescued the year with a splendid solo performance, in his own re-working of George Moore’s ‘Celibate Lives’ at the Kings Head Islington. He took the play to Belfast the following year, appearing at Queens University and in 1975 was at the John Player Theatre, Dublin, in Stewart Parker’s debut stage play ‘Spokesong’, a featured piece in the city’s theatre festival that year.

In the 1977  festival, he pricked the sensitivities of the powers that be, who banned his own production of ‘Bloomsday’ but he did eventually present the Joycean homage at the Tower Theatre, London, later that year. His interest in the works of George Moore continued the following year, when he played the Irish dramatist in another of his one man plays,’The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs’, at the New End Theatre in Hampstead, which he subsequently took on tour. After a long absence from the screen, he reappeared in the 1979 television mini-series, ‘My Son My Son’ but was attracting less and less quality acting roles and into the eighties his projects amounted to little more than a couple of minor roles on television, with his last appearance in Gerald Seymour’s spy thriller, ‘The Contract’, an adapted mini-series aired in 1988.

Allan McClelland’s career cannot be measured in highs and lows, it could however be best described as a long leisurely stroll.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

– Danger Men Working(1950) Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith

– Ulysses in Nighttown(1959) Arts Theatre Club, London

TV

– The Villains(1965)

– Budgie(1971)

– The Carnforth Practice (1974)

– Murder Motel (1975)

– Premiere (1980

 

 

Eileen McCloskey

Born Belfast

Practised stage performer and intermittent screen actor, a University of Ulster graduate in English and Theatre, who later completed studies at the Guildford School of Acting in the early eighties. She then enrolled as a member of Michael Poynor’s Ulster Youth Theatre, appearing in the musicals ‘Grease’ in 1985 and ‘West Side Story’ in 1986. A period at the Arts Theatre, Belfast during 1988/89 saw her in a minor role as schoolgirl Vera in ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’, featuring Maev Alexander as the titular Edinburgh Teacher.

A year later in 1989, in a similar modest part, she played the naïve Agnes opposite Gerard Murphy as Arnolphe, in Derek Mahon’s ‘The School for Wives’, a competent adaptation of Moliere’s 17^th century theatrical comedy/drama. She established herself at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in the early to mid-nineties, taking a significant role in Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ in 1990, as maidservant Regina Engstrand. Following this she appeared as the tragic Ophelia in the 1992 Charles Nowosielski directed ‘Hamlet’, in a cast including Stuart Graham and Richard Orr.

In July 1992 she was recruited by the Druid Theatre Company, Galway for the part of Rosie, in Patrick Hamilton’s psychological thriller ‘Gaslight’, directed by Vanessa Fielding. Back on the Lyric stage in January 1993 she was cast as jilted bride Miss Havisham, in a functional production of Charles Dickens’ wondrous ‘Great Expectations’ and in March that year was the servant spirit Ariel, in ‘The Tempest’, directed by Robin Midgley.

At the Gate Theatre, Dublin in 1995, she appeared in the family drama ‘Sharon’s Grave’, director Ben Barnes’ revival of J.B. Keane’s enduring 1960 play set in rural Ireland in the 1930s. She returned to the Lyric in April 1996 for the role of youngest sister and single mother Chrissie Mundy, Brian Fiel’s well travelled masterpiece ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’, directed by Conall Morrison. In October 1996 she gave a compelling performance as the lovelorn Kate Doogan, in the Lyric’s production of another Friel triumph, ‘Philadelphia Here I Come’, directed by David Grant and staged at the Grand Opera House, Belfast.

Her screen debut in writer/director Pen Densham’s 1996 feature ‘Moll Flanders’ was inconsequential, a walk-on in a cast starring Robin Wright and Morgan Freeman and filmed in part in Dublin and County Wicklow. She worked at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 1997/98, impressing as the god fearing Deborah in Gary Mitchell’s fraught drama ‘In a Little World of Our Own’ and in the Theatre Festival of 1998, proved engaging as Irish Republican singer, Sheila in the premiere of Michael Harding’s cross- community  drama ‘Amazing Grace’. Luckless on screen, she fared no better in her second effort, the television movie ‘St Ives’, credited as ‘Prostitute’ in Allan Cubitt’s adaptation of a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, released in 1999.

At the Gate Theatre in 2000, director Alan Stanford offered her the role of the maid Louka in his excellent reworking of G.B. Shaw’s exquisite satire ‘Arms and the Man’, with Des Keogh as Major Petkoff and Fiona O’Shaughnessy as Raina. On screen in 2000 she was mercifully sighted only fleetingly, appearing as Delphine in Jim Keebles’ brainless, independently produced film, ‘The Most Fertile Man in Ireland’, with Bronagh Gallagher, the eponymous Kris Marshall and a perplexed James Nesbitt as the curiously named ‘Mad Dog’ Billy Wilson.

In the new millennium, stage opportunities were sparing, indeed she made only three further appearances from 2000 until 2019. She was ideal as Catherine, the ostentatious and youngest of three estranged sisters, in Shelagh Stephenson’s black comedy ‘The Memory of Water’, directed by Paula McFetridge and presented at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 2003. Following a long period of inactivity she reemerged at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast in 2008, playing an against the model Pegeen Mike alongside Conleth Hill as the playboy himself Christy Mahon, in David Grant’s indifferent take on Synge’s magnum opus, ‘The Playboy of the Western World’.

Screenwork was halting and she registered only three further credits from 2000, all low-key, with the most noteworthy being her ‘Village Woman’ in two episodes of HBO’global phenomenon ‘Game of Thrones’ in 2019. On stage that year she was faultless as the stringent Catholic mother, in a revival of Brenda Winter-Palmer’s quasi-musical ‘Keep Telling Me Lies’, a Karma Theatre Company production staged at The Mac, Belfast, with the city’s iconic Floral Hall as a felicitous backdrop.

Eileen McCloskey, despite lengthy breaks, has earned a degree of respect in theatre and in a professional career spanning five decades, has racked up an expansive list of roles across the genres, played out largely on the Belfast and Dublin stage.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

 Theatre

 -The Iceman Cometh1990) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Catchpenny Twist(1990) Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast

-Rebecca(1991) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-Dockers(1991)  Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-The Witches(1992) Olympia Theatre, Dublin

-She Stoops to Conquer(1994) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

-The Jungle Book(1996) Lyric Theatre, Belfast

TV

-Give My Head Peace(2000)

-I Fought the Law(2003)

-The Secret(2016)

 

Emer McCourt

 

 

 

Born Newry 1964

Incisive and enterprising actor/producer/novelist, who for a period in the nineties gave but a glimpse of her acting capabilities, during a career too short to evaluate. Her time in front of the camera lasted barely seven years and with a limited stage background, her attenuated legacy will not stand the test of time. After graduating from the University Of Ulster, where her acting skills were first tested as a member of the drama society, she made her film debut as pregnant schoolgirl Goretti, in writer/director Margo Harkin’s Derry set melodrama ‘Hush- a- Bye Baby’ 1990.

Also that year she was offered a co-starring role as Susan, in Ken Loach’s undervalued ‘Riff Raff’, opposite rising Scottish actor Robert Carlyle and in her first television appearance, played Bernadette O’Rourke in an episode of the quirky private eye series ‘Boon’. In 1992, in Writer/director Hanif Kureishi’s unyielding independently produced drama ‘London Kills Me’, she gave an outstanding performance as drug addict Sylvie, in a cast of lesser lights including the then unknown Steven Mackintosh.

With the exception of an also starring role as Eileen in the television mini- series ‘Parnell and the Englishwoman’ and a significant part in Johnny Gogan’s Irish produced, low budget film ‘The Bargain Shop’, both 1992, she did little or nothing on screen for almost three years. During the early nineties she made infrequent stage appearances, most notably in Sam Mendes’ adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s ‘ The Plough and the Stars ‘ presented at the Young Vic Theatre, London in 1991, with a cast including Judi Dench and Stanley Townsend.

She reappeared in 1995 in another independent film, Paul Hills’ violent urban drama ‘Boston Kickout’, co-starring with John Simm but disappeared again until 1997, when she accepted a role in Colm Villa’s muddled near future thriller ‘Sunset Heights’, which also marked the film debut of Patrick O’Kane. Her final screen appearance was not memorable, taking a leading role in Allan Niblo’s low key romantic comedy ‘Loop’ 1997 and in 1999 her association with the industry, with the exception of a film short in 2014, at least ended on a high note, when she co-produced the acclaimed rave culture inspired feature ‘Human Traffic’.

Emer McCourt’s decision to retire from acting at such a young age was no doubt made with regret and although her film output was largely indie dominated, she was but an opportunity away from a mainstream breakthrough.

Other Theatre and TV credits:

Theatre

– No One Sees the Video(1990) Royal Court, Theatre Upstairs, London

– A View From the Bridge(1994) Bristol Old Vic

TV

– Shoot to Kill (1990)

– The House of  Bernarda Alba (1991)

– Frank Stubbs(1993)

 

Aaron McCusker

Born New Jersey 26^th November 1978

*Returned to Northern Ireland as an infant in January 1979

Effectual and versatile character actor, whose childhood thespian ambitions were tested with the musically inspired Young Phoenix Players, in his hometown of Portadown Co. Armagh, where his notable credits included a general cast role in ‘Bugsy Malone’ and the lead as Danny Zuko in ‘Grease’.

In his legitimate stage debut he played King Caspian in director David Grant’s ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’, a C.S. Lewis adaptation which opened at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in November 1997. This preceded a course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, graduating in 2001.

He registered his first screen appearance a year later, cast as D.S. Holland in writer Abi Morgan’s Bafta Award winning crime thriller ‘Murder’, starring Best Actress Julie Walters, heading a strong cast of David Morrisey, Imelda Staunton and Robert Glenister. He followed this with fringe parts in the pulp war adventure series ‘Ultimate Force’ in 2002 and writer/director Steven Lewis Simpson’s West of Scotland set big screen thriller, ‘The Ticking Man’ 2003.

An opportune, but minor involvement in director Jonathan Kent’s acclaimed revival of ‘Lear’ in 2005, marked his second stage engagement. Performed at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, it featured an outstanding Ian McDiarmud as the unhinged king and Sharon Small as his daughter Fontanelle.  Later that same year at the Cockpit Theatre, London, under the direction of Helen Eastman, he played Neoptolmus, son of Achilles, in Floodtide’s production of Seamus Heaney’s re-telling of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy ‘Philoctetes’.

Minimal screen work in 2006 was augmented by his supporting role as Martin Reilly in Jim Nolan’s mid-17^th century, Co. Waterford drama ‘Blackwater Angel’, staged at the Finborough Theatre, London, which starred Sean Campion as opportunist faith healer, Valentine Greatrakes.

A breakthrough came in January 2007 with the introduction of his character Jamie Maguire, incorrigible eldest son of the Maguire clan, in Paul Abbott’s coal-black comedy drama ‘Shameless’, appearing in a sizeable 108 episodes until the series ended in May 2013. His only other work outside contractual obligations to ‘Shameless’ producers, Company Pictures, was a return to the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 2012. Masterful in the role of the ignominious Algernon Moncrieff in director Graham McLaren’s marvellous, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, he deservedly received an Irish Times Theatre nomination for Best Actor.

In 2013, in the eighth and final season of James Manos Jr’s Golden Globe winning psychological drama ‘Dexter’ he was offered the role of the murderous A.J. Yates, appearing in two episodes before he himself became a victim of the titular serial killer. Significant screen appearances during 2014/15 included his portrayal of Northern Ireland footballer Gerry Armstrong in writer/director James Erskine’s bargain basement feature ‘Shooting For Socrates’, set against the backdrop of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

2015  proved  especially  productive with recurring roles in two creditable television series. In Simon Donald’s Arctic Norway based drama ‘Fortitude’, he was one of a number of Ulster actors in a cast starring Richard Dormer, Michelle Fairley and Jonjo O’Neill. He was also a constant in ABC’s ‘The Astronauts Wives Club’, an adaptation of Lily Koppel’s best selling book, appearing in all ten episodes as space pioneer Wally Schirra, opposite Zoe Boyle as his wife Jo.

A stream of work across all media in 2018, saw him co-star as Bridges in director Eric Zaragoza’s sci-fi thriller ‘Incoming’, following this with an affecting performance as Freddie Mercury’s partner Jim Hutton, in Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan’s biopic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. He also supplemented his substantial television CV with a full series run in the comedy ‘Women on the Verge’ and in another visit to the Lyric Theatre, was unerring as mid-seventies record producer and champion of Belfast Punk , Terri Hooley, in the Des Kennedy directed ‘Good Vibrations’. He was on the wrong side of the law again in 2020, once more as a member of a crime family called Maguire. Playing Finn Maguire, he appeared in all eight episodes of series three of the crime drama ‘Marcella’.

Aaron McCusker has since 2007 been a prolific screen performer on both sides of the Atlantic, predominantly on television, but has due to these commitments and for no other reason, created an inequitable stage history, which in time should find a logical sense of balance.

Other Film and TV credits:

Film

– Final Score(2018)

TV

– The Rotters Club(2005)

– The Bill(2006)

– Demons(2009)

– Silent Witness(2014)

– 24: Live Another Day(2014)

– Castle(2016)

– Hope Street(2021/22)

 

Frank McCusker

Born Newtownbutler, Co. Fermanagh 1967

Facile and convincing stage and screen actor with a weighty history in both genres, who after a two year drama course at the Gaiety School Of Acting in Dublin, made his professional theatre debut there in 1988 as Joseph Too in the Dublin Theatre Festival presentation of Christopher Nolan’s autobiographical ‘Torchlight and Laserbeams’.

In 1989, in a guest role with the Druid Theatre Company he played adopted son Colm Taggart in Ken Bourke’s inaugural play ‘Wild Harvest’ and made his first television appearance in Tom McGurk’s dramatization of the Giuseppe Conlon letters, ‘Dear Sarah’, with Stella McCusker as anguished wife and mother Sarah Conlon. Strong performances as gormless trainee mortician Michael, in Jim Nolan’s ‘Moonshine’ at the Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford and a Helen Hayes nomination for leading actor in ‘The Playboy of the Western World’ at the Kennedy Centre New York, both 1991, effectively served notice of his rapidly improving stage credentials.

In his film debut a year later, he was cast as covertly subversive Jack Cuffe, son of widowed artist Julie Christie in director Michael Whyte’s poignant and little seen ‘The Railway Station Man’, shot in Co Donegal, with Donald Sutherland as the lynchpin of the title. During 1993/96 he made several appearances with the Abbey and included Bernard Farrell’s ‘The Last Apache Reunion’ 1993, ‘The Adventures of Shay Mouse’ 1995 and notably as the philandering Mr Thornhill in Tom Murphy’s ‘She Stoops to Folly’1996, a re-working of Oliver Goldsmith’s period comedy ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’.

Stella McCusker

Barry McEvoy

Mairead McKinley

Born Newry 1970

 

Proficient and driven, affirmed stage actor, with a moderate screen history, who first gained experience with Sean Hollywood’s Newpoint Players in her native Newry, making an early appearance in Patch Connolly’s so-called Promenade play, ‘The Fair Day’ at Newry Town Hall in 1988. A RADA graduate in 1993, she was fortunate that same year to secure her first professional stage work, playing dual roles as Biddy/Julie in writer/director Gregory Motton’s intriguing ‘The Terrible Voice of Satan’, also featuring Portadown born Denys Hawthorne and presented at the Royal Court, Upstairs in June 1993. She followed this with Alan Bleasdale’s social drama ‘The Party’s Over’, directed by Alan Cohen at the Theatre Royal, Northampton in 1994.

A busy 1995 saw her in two productions at the Crucible, Sheffield; In November, Carli Goldini’s madcap comedy ‘The Servant of Two Masters’ and the Christmas pantomime, ‘The Wind in the Willows’. On screen she made her debut as Sister Monica in an episode in the first series of the irreverent comedy ‘Father Ted’ and appeared as Tracy Saunders in three episodes of Tony McHales  Brighton set crime drama, ‘Resort to  Murder’.

Negligible work on screen in the latter half of the nineties was neutralised by a number of significant theatre appearances, which included short spells with both the NT and the RSC. In July 1996 at the Gate Theatre, London, she took a central role as Pampinea in Nick Ward’s translation of Boccaccio’s 14^th century Florentine plague epic, ‘The Decameron’, in a cast including Dubliner Aidan McArdle. Later that year on the NTs Cottesloe stage, she had a supporting role as Maid of Honour Yokobue in Peter Oswald’s adaptation of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s verse play, ‘Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards’.

In 1998 director John Crowley recruited her for his Synge Trinity of Plays, staged by the RSC at ‘The Other Place’ in Stratford. She was faultless as eldest daughter Cathleen in ‘Riders to the Sea’, with Stella McCusker as Mother Maurya and Stephen Kennedy as Bartley. In the second play, the one-act ‘The Shadow of the Glen’, she was cast as the despondent Nora Burke, with Owen Sharpe as her lover Michael. She produced further impressive work on stage in the early 2000’s, with two plays at the Tricycle Theatre, London in 2002, both set in Ireland at epoch making moments in its history.

In Helen Edmundson’s mid 17^th century religiopolitical ‘The Clearing’, set in the midst of a Cromwellian carve-up, she was the mysterious Killaine Farrell, opposite Aisling McGuckin’s valorous Madeleine Preston. She followed this with a lively turn as a garrulous prostitute in writer Carlo Gebler’s ‘Ten Rounds’, an updated adaptation of Arthur Schnitzer’s ‘La Ronde’, positioned against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland Peace Process in 1998 and directed by Nicolas Kent.

A productive period between 2003/06 brought her roles in a wide range of iconic plays, all produced at the vanguard of English theatre. At the Royal Exchange, Manchester in 2003 she played a more feisty than imagined Pegeen Mike, alongside the seductive bragging of Michael Colgan’s Christy Mahon, in director Gregg Hersov’s well –received interpretation of Synge’s masterful pitch black comedy, ‘The Playboy of the Western World’. Playing dual roles again, she appeared on the NTs Olivier stage in 2004, in Derek Mahon’s unpolished take on Edmond Rostand’s romantic comedy ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’, with Stephen Rea, Belfast accent intact, as the proboscis challenged titular hero.

Another made to measure part was as the purposeful milkmaid Maire, in Brian Friel’s ‘Translations’, a NT touring production, directed by Sean Holmes in 2005. A brush with the classics in 2006 offered her the role of the matricidal  Electra, in Helen Edmundson’s translation of Euripides’tragedy ‘Orestes’, which following its opening at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, undertook a a short tour which included that years Dublin Theatre Festival.  

On screen in the same period her opportunities were limited, but still managed a three episode stint as policeman’s wife Aoifa Stanton in writer Declan Croghan’s crime thriller ‘Murder Prevention’ in 2004, which also starred Michael Smiley. Then followed a critically acclaimed portrayal as the pregnant Molly, in search of an oblivious father in writer/director Emily Atef’s atmospheric drama ‘Molly’s Way’, released in 2005.

In her eventual professional N Irish theatre debut, she did not disappoint , with a skilfull characterization of the vulnerable Rose, in director Mick Gordon’s modification of Brian Friel’s magnum opus, ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’, staged at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in June 2007. Her work rate slowed from 2008, with screen appearances reduced to minor guest roles on television. In theatre it was more sporadic, indeed she worked on just productions in 2017/18. At the Hampstead Theatre in 2017 she delivered an effortless performance as loyal wife and mother, Eileen, in Ryan Craig’s fervent family comedy ‘Filthy Business’ and a year later she toured with Birmingham Rep in director Calixto Bieto’s monologues to music ensemble, ‘The String Quartet’s Guide to Sex and Anxiety’.

Mairead McKinley as her career suggests is more or less a predetermined stage player, whose characters have been regularly effective and consistently inspiriting.

 

Other Theatre, Film and TV Credits:

 Theatre

– Roberto Zucco(1997) The Other Place, Stratford

– Don Juan(1997 )West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

– Purgatory(1998) The Other Place, Stratford

– Macbeth(1999) West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

– Further Than the Furthest Thing(2001) Tricycle Theatre, London

– The Cherry Orchard(2003) Oxford Playhouse

– St Petersburg(2008) Bush Theatre, London

Film

-Velvet Goldmine(1998)

-Demons Never Die(2011)

-Edge of Tomorrow(2014)

TV

-Life after Birth(1996)

-Peak Practice(1998)

-Casualty(2006)

-The Amazing Mrs Pritchard(2006)

-Heartbeat(2007)

-Doctors(2008)

-My Mad Fat Diary(2014)

-Vera(2015)

-Holby City(2016)

-Unforgotten(2017)

 

Liam McMahon

Born Donaghmore, Co. Tyrone 1977

Congenial and able supporting actor, who from a young age was a member of Sean Faloon’s Bardic Theatre Group, based in his hometown of Donaghmore. In the mid-nineties he appeared with the Ulster Youth Theatre, most notably in the David Grant adaptation of Joshua Sobol’s compelling 1941, Lithuania set memory play ‘Ghetto’, staged at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 1996.

Following his graduation from Stirling University in 1999, where he read Film and Media Studies, he made his bit part debut in Guy Ritchie’s overblown crime caper ‘Snatch’ in 2000, playing an ensemble traveller, credited only as Gypsy Man, in a cast which featured a decidedly nonplussed Brad Pitt and Dennis Farina. Further big screen roles in 2002/04 were at least an improvement on his ‘Snatch’ contribution, but in lower budgeted productions. He took a co-starring role as university student Liam, in writer Guy De Beaujeu’s limp comedy ‘Living in Hope’ in 2002 and in another modest independent film had a minor part in the same writer’s murky family drama ‘(Past Present Future) Imperfect’ 2004.

A long absence from theatre ended in 2003 with his role as the ruthlessly successful salesman, Ricky Roma in David Mamet’s Pulitzer prize winning ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’, presented as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s at the Crescent Arts Centre. In another stage appearance, Danny Morrison’s 1984, Belfast set ‘The Wrong Man’, adapted from his novel of the same name, he played loyalist paramilitary Billy, which eventually after much perturbation, opened at the Pleasance Theatre, London in 2005.

Thus his Theatre career sparked into life with a 2006 tour of Ireland in ‘Wuthering Heights’ and a summer sojourn in Los Angeles with Tim Robbins’ Actors Gang, appearing in ‘Love’s Labour Lost’ and ‘Beasts of Burden’. Soon after his return, he performed at the 2006 Liberty Days Festival in Saintfield, Co. Down in Vivien Hewitt’s 1798 rebellion inspired ‘Who Dares to Speak’.

From 2007/10 he had mixed fortunes on stage and screen with minor television roles and a potential career changing cameo as fictional IRA prisoner Gerry Campbell in writer/director Steve McQueen’s multi award winning biopic ‘Hunger’ 2008, starring Michael Fassbender as iconic republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. At Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre in 2010 he was cast as solicitor Jonathan Harker in Michael Scott’s ‘Dracula the Show’, but falling audience figures brought a premature closing of the production and further disappointment with resulting legal proceedings.

Film and television work picked up after a brief stutter, with a clutch of decent roles, beginning with his Belfast shipyard worker, Arthur McAllister in the De Angelis Group’s mega budget mini-series ‘Titanic: Blood and Steel’ in 2012 and a starring credit a year later as Fionn O’Brien in the irish produced romantic comedy ‘The O’Briens’. In between he found time for a short theatre tour, in a revival of Frank McGuinness’ Bloody Sunday elegy ‘Carthaginians’, directed by Adrian Dunbar, which opened at the Millennium Forum, Derry in February 2012.

An incisive cameo as O’Brien in first time director Yann Demange’s acclaimed ‘Troubles’ thriller ‘71’, shot alas in the north of England and released in 2014, preceded his leading role as Donovan, in director Jason Boritz’s psychological horror film ‘The Shattering’ 2015.  Two low-key appearances on television in 2016 did nothing to enhance his image and only his D.S. Ferris in writer Stuart Urban’s factual crime drama, ‘The Secret’ is worth a mention. Although his stint on ‘Coronation Street’ in 2019 was relatively fleeting, it was most definitely high profile, playing hostage negotiator Andy, he appeared in three episodes, depicting the violent abduction of Julia Goulding’s character, Shona Ramsey. 

Liam McMahon has been by a long chalk, closer to a breakthrough on screen, which pragmatically seems to be the favoured medium, but hopefully and aesthetically, only for the immediate future.

Other Theatre, Film and TV credits:

Theatre

-Carnival(2008) Custom’s House Square, Belfast

-La Musica Deuxieme(2010) Unicorn Theatre, London

-A Midsummer Night’s Dream(2013) Tour

Film

Billionaire Ransom(2015)

TV

-Northanger Abbey(2007)

-The Tudors(2008/09)

-Maru(2010)

-Without You(2011)

-The Borgias(2013)

-The Fall(2014)

-The Living and the Dead(2016)

-Agatha and the Truth of Murder(2018)

-Doctors(2019)

-Warrior Nun(2020)

-Silverpoint(2022)

Ciaran McMenamin