Familiar faces set to launch Belfast' s new Lyric

ONE OF television’s most familiar faces and Britain’s leading comic performers, Rob Brydon will join one of Belfast’s most famous thespian sons, Kenneth Branagh, on the stage of the city’s new Lyric Theatre as part of the season when the £18.1 million Laganside venue opens its doors later in the year.

Both will perform in the Francis Verber farce, The Painkiller,in a version adapted by Seán Foley. For the hometown boy, this is a return to the stage – Branagh's last role was in Ivanov in London on 2008.

Brydon – star of Marion and Geoff, Gavin and Staceyand a host of other British TV comedy shows – said he "couldn't be more pleased than to be working alongside as great a talent as Kenneth Branagh".

The season includes other firsts – the premiere of a new play about Brendan Behan which has been written by his niece Janet Behan will open the Naughton Studio, part of the Lyric complex.

Adrian Dunbar will star in and direct Brendan at the Chelsea, based on the Dublin playwright's tenure in the New York's bohemian landmark hotel.

Janet Behan is also an actress who has starred in Eastenders.

Belfast's landmark new building will open on May 1st, with a production of Arthur Miller's The Crucibledirected by Conall Morrison.

Branagh and Foley previously collaborated in 2001 when they produced The Play What I Wrote, which won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy after its West End run. The Painkillerwill open in September.

The new Lyric's first season, launched yesterday, includes a 30th anniversary revival of local playwright Martin Lynch's Dockers, set in 1960s working class Belfast and first produced when Lynch was the theatre's playwright-in-residence. The Lyric has also secured the world premiere in December of a new musical adaptation of Saint-Exupéry's children's tale, The Little Prince.

After it was established by Pearse and Mary O’Malley in the 1950s, the Lyric became a stronghold of new drama in the North. Dublin architects O’Donnell and Tuomey won the open competition to design the new playhouse.