Flights Written by John O’Donovan │ Directed by Thomas Martin
Produced by One Duck in association with glór
glór │Previews Wednesday 15th January 8pm │ Runs Thursday 17th – Friday 18th January 8pm
One Duck theatre in association with glór are thrilled to announce the premiere of award-winning Clarecastle playwright John O’Donovan’s new play, Flights in January. Flights is a darkly funny play and a touching, comic elegy to lost youth and wasted opportunity.
Ennis. A dark and stormy night. Three men, Barry, Cusack and Pa gather again for the anniversary of their childhood friend Liam – killed in a road accident when they were seventeen.
Expecting a crowd and tearing into the cans, the three slowly realise they’re the only ones coming. Expecting a crowd and tearing into the cans, the three slowly realise they’re the only ones coming. As they drink to their uncertain futures – and their receding youth – they’re forced to face up to the ghost that has held them together.
John O’Donovan returns home to Clare for this haunting, hilarious new play about bereavement, brotherhood and breaking away from your past.
John says, ‘I’ve been writing Flights on and off for about 5 years now, it’s very close to my heart. It started off as a fairly funny sketch about a guy throwing his own going-away party, but while I was sketching out that early draft, I got some bad news that someone from home had died by suicide. I wrote Flights then as a tribute, not just to the friends who have died, but also to the friends that have gathered in their wake. In memory of all the times we have gathered in remembrance.’
Flights will further celebrate the creative community in Clare and the cast will feature Newmarket on Fergus actor Conor Madden. Conor is a former member of Clare Youth Theatre and got his first real taste of theatre while doing work experience in glór at the tender age of 15.
From the team behind the smash hit If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You, Flights makes its World Premiere at glór for three nights only before transferring to Dublin and London.
Once again, Clare’s flagship Arts Centre, glór, is placing new theatre squarely at the heart of its programme, having premiered Jacinta Sheerin’s Sweet About Me in March, Rough Magic’s and glór’s co-production, Cleft in June and now presenting Flights in association with One Duck.
Orla Flanagan, Director says, ‘I am very excited for glór to be premiering Flights by John O’Donovan – this is John’s second play set in Ennis, and it is a really confident piece of stage writing that feels very real, familiar and pertinent. We are looking forward to working with One Duck producer Alan Mahon alongside John to showcase their theatrical talent in this three-hander production, building on the success of If we got some more cocaine, I could show you how I love you, presented in February 2018 at glór.’
There will be a post-show talk with John O’Donovan on January 16th.
A gifted writer Irish Independent on Sink.
A real treat… hugely satisfying and entertaining Irish Independent on If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You.
Writer John O’Donovan Director Thomas Martin
Cast Colin Campbell, Rhys Dunlop and Conor Madden.
Design Naomi Faughnan Lighting Zia Bergin-Holly Movement Sue Mythen
Producer Alan Mahon
About John O’Donovan
John O’Donovan is a London-based playwright from Clarecastle, Co. Clare. His debut play If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You premiered at the Old Red Lion in 2016 winning John an IARA award for Best Playwright before receiving its Irish premiere in 2018 in a One Duck production at Project Arts Centre, glór and The Mick Lally Theatre. It earned John the BBC Northern Ireland Radio Drama Award and is published by Methuen Drama.
His second play Sink premiered at Smock Alley Theatre as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2019.
His work has been read and staged in the UK at The Old Vic, Old Red Lion Theatre, New Diorama, Southwark Playhouse, Theatre503, Arcola Theatre and RADA, as well as in Ireland at Druid Theatre, the Abbey Theatre, Project Arts Centre and glór. A former member of the Old Vic 12, Orange Tree Writers’ Collective and Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme, as well as the Abbey Theatre Playwrights Hub in Ireland and the BBC Drama Writersroom 2018, he has had stories and plays published in Verbal Arts Magazine, Crannóg and Bare Fiction.
About One Duck
One duck was founded in 2016 by graduates of the Lir Academy with the aim of producing entertaining and ambitious new Irish plays and presenting international work to Irish audiences for the first time.
