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Streaming on iPlayer – David Ireland’s Sadie
ONE of the good things about the explosion of streamed theatre in our homes is that our choice is suddenly limitless and we get to see shows that we might never have gone to in person.
David Ireland is a Northern Irish-born playwright and actor, best known for his award-winning plays Cyprus Avenue and Ulster American. I missed Cyprus Avenue at the Royal Court but caught the film version, starring Stephen Rea and directed by Vicky Featherstone, during lockdown last year.
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Award-winning actress Kathy Burke has praised the Lyric Theatre s new lockdown production, Sadie, saying it was so brilliant, she watched it twice.
The play, written by David Ireland for the Lyric, in association with Field Day Theatre Company, was filmed on the Main Stage in February, as part of BBC Arts Lights up theatre campaign for a new Culture in Quarantine season.
Starring Abigail McGibbon in the title role, Sadie was broadcast on BBC Four on March 31 and then on BBC2 NI, the following night. It will also be available to view for 12 months on BBC iPlayer.
Burke, who has won many accolades, including Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and British Comedy Awards, told her 436,000 Twitter followers that the production was amazing and urged them to give it a watch.
People worry about the wrong things when they re being painted. They think they ll get bored, or restless. But what should really concern them is what they ll say when they start to relax.
I ve painted a few portraits in my time, and I know from experience that sitters will share astonishing things with you. As though you were a priest, or a shrink.
Therein lies the brilliance of Katherine Parkinson s play Sitting, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018 and can be seen on BBC4 on Wednesday next week, and iPlayer thereafter.
Katherine Parkinson s play Sitting premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018 and can be seen on BBC4 on Wednesday next week, and iPlayer thereafter. Pictured: Parkinson in Sitting
Sadie review – lockdown Belfast drama is hilarious and harrowing Mark Lawson
In Cyprus Avenue (2016) and Ulster American (2018), which won awards and caused walkouts, David Ireland established a signature tone of farcical nightmare. Ulster Unionists (his own community) are driven to outlandish non-paramilitary violence by their perception that they are a despised minority in Ireland, the US and – despite long historical loyalty to its monarchs – the UK.
His new play, Sadie, was due to have its world premiere at the Lyric in Belfast. That was blocked by lockdown but it was filmed in the empty auditorium by the BBC as part of the Lights Up festival of streamed theatre. It’s another provocative comedy of intolerance, but takes into fresh domestic territory the earlier plays’ themes of long memories, violent revenge, and the possibility of forgiveness and forgetting.