Lies Where it Falls

WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY RUAIRÍ CONAGHAN

DIRECTED BY PATRICK O’KANE

Award-winning Broadway, West End and Downton Abbey actor Ruairí Conaghan brings a story born from his native South Derry to The Helicon stage.

When asked to play the part of Patrick Magee (the man who tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher and her government in Brighton in 1984) an act of violence upon his own family when he was a child plays heavily with his conscience despite being a tale of truth and reconciliation. However, it was in his next role as The Player King in the most successful production of Hamlet in recent years that the true consequence of his decision took its toll. The speech about King Priam of Troy’s assassination that the Player King makes to a broken Hamlet, flares up the memories of his family’s devastation and brings down on Ruairi a physical and mental collapse that threatens his mortality. It is only through the love and care of family and the community of theatre that he is brought back from the brink.

In a time when the legacies of this island’s recent past have never been more important to talk about, this unique one-person show, directed by acclaimed actor Patrick O’Kane, uses storytelling, song, poetry, humour, cinema and Shakespeare to tell Ruairí’s tale, leaving us with a sense that, even through the worst of times, if we can find empathy, there is always hope.