Posted on 28 May 2010The play is going down really well; it's great to hear the audience laughing so heartily every night. Andy Gray is a master at playing the audience and he has them eating out of his hand by the end of every show.
Posted on 15 February 2010You can take the man out of Belfast but you can't take Belfast out of the man. Iggy and Gerry are two living examples of that truism. They may have left home in their youth, but it remains the thing that defines them.
Posted on 12 February 2010Two men sit together, waiting. They pass the time bickering and bantering, waiting for something that never comes. Owen McCafferty gives Beckett a nod in the opening scene of his new play, in which Gerry and Iggy look back at lives less lived as they plot their way to their final resting place.
Posted on 12 February 2010Owen McCafferty is a playwright of the missing and the missed, the silent and the dispossessed. As a chronicler of Belfast, he has got under the pocked skin of his home city and created works of literature, of art, that compare with few other writers, a handful of early Brian Moore novels aside.
Posted on 26 January 2010Our recent fundraising dinner in New York has generated tremendous interest and those of us who were involved in putting the event together were delighted, of course, that it was so successful. I heard Paul Rankin chatting to Gerry Kelly on the radio and I think he summed up the whole thing perfectly: "It was held in a very cool penthouse near Broadway in New York. As we were sitting down, you could see Manhattan glittering in the background. It was an out of the world experience. It was just a stunning event".
Posted on 30 November 2009"Some things are made to go together at Christmas. Turkey and stuffing, holly and ivy…, Grimes and McKee. The funny pair's annual shows at the Lyric are as much a part of the festive season as tinsel and crackers." Belfast Telegraph
Posted on 16 November 2009Paul Boyd's enchanting adaption of the original French fairytale Beauty and the Beast. "Forget Disney...this is more magical" BBC Radio
Posted on 30 October 2009It's that time of year again when Christmas cheer and festive fun are brought to life on stage at the Lyric. This year's line up includes grown-up festive capers in a brand new comedy Howl! by Grimes and McKee and a fun-filled musical for the family in the Northern Ireland premiere of Paul Boyd's The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast
Posted on 29 October 2009Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, treats assembled guests to a reading of one of his poems at the unveiling of the Threshold Stone at the recently laid foundations of the new building.
Posted on 09 February 2009Brian Friel's 'The Home Place' is the current production at the Grand Opera House in Belfast. Directed by Mick Gordon, it's a co-production between the Lyric Theatre and An Grianán in Letterkenny, with a cast including Ian McElhinney, Conleth Hill and Stuart Graham.
Posted on 09 February 2009Brian Friel's latest play was written in 2005 and performed that year in London and Dublin.