Musical ‘Playboy’ takes to highways and byways

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Nobody could accuse Justin McCarthy of lacking imagination, because this man of many parts – musician, television director, videographer, dramatist – will go to any lengths to get his long-cherished pet project to the biggest audience he can. The Playboy of the Western World – The Musical started out as a radio production, broadcast to critical acclaim on RTÉ; it became a stage show at An Taibhdhearc and the Town Hall Theatre before Covid forced it outdoors into a giant tent – and now it’s about to embark on a national tour.

Once again, it will be staged under canvas, with an all-star cast that includes the legendary Kate O’Toole as narrator, amid a host of home-grown talent, many of whom have been part of the story through its various incarnations.

Two nights at Coole Park in Gort on August 27 and 28 will wrap up the short tour, by which time it will have been staged on the grounds of IMMA in Dublin, from August 5 to 7, and at Muckross House in Killarney, from August 19 to 21.

This is the culmination of an idea that has burned brightly for over three years now, ever since Justin – whose own professional background is in directing for television – and actor and director Diarmuid de Faoite first got the idea to develop a musical version of John Millington Synge’s classic drama which tells the story of the arrival of a young man, Christy Mahon, into a village in West Mayo, claiming that he’s on the run after having killed his farmer father.

Problem was they couldn’t find any theatre company willing to take on the risk – so they re-imagined it as a radio play and approached RTÉ’s head of drama, Kevin Reynolds, who loved it.

Thus, The Playboy of the Western World – the Radio Musical was broadcast on RTÉ Radio and won a silver award at the annual PPI Radio Awards in Kilkenny, adding to the bronze which it won at New York Festival’s Best Radio Program Award.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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