FORMER BOYZONE singer and Coronation Street star Keith Duffy is taking part in the latest production by Galway’s Druid Theatre company.
Duffy (37) plays slick, feckless, "lusty" commercial traveller Teddy Heelin in John B Keane's classic Big Maggie, as one of 11 members of the cast under the direction of Garry Hynes.
He began rehearsals in Galway yesterday with Aisling O’Sullivan, who plays the lead role, and with John Olohan, Paul Connaughton and Nancy E Carroll.
Duffy wasn’t even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes when the play had its premiere in 1969, but its ingredients of money, land, “secret sex” and power are timeless themes.
“Shocking for its time – the portrait that Keane painted of the dark side of Irish family life seems now to be eerily prescient,” the Druid Theatre Company explains, promising a “riveting” interpretation.
As a widowed mother of four, O’Sullivan’s portrayal of Maggie Polpin is of a woman determined and ready to take power into her own hands.
Joan Sheehy, Sarah Greene, Amy Molloy, Charlie Murphy, Des Nealon and Stephen Mullan complete the cast.
The play continues Hynes's exploration of Keane's canon of work – an exploration which began with Sive nine years ago and continued with Sharon's Gravein 2003 and The Year of the Hikerin 2006.
It will run in Galway’s Town Hall Theatre from November 11th, and will move to Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre from November 21st to 26th.
It will continue in Ennis, Co Clare; Cork; Castlebar, Co Mayo; Tralee, Co Kerry; Portlaoise, Co Laois; Roscommon; Longford and Sligo. The production will return to Galway and Dublin next year.
The play’s staging in Sligo in January will mark the 30th birthday of the town’s Hawk’s Well Theatre.
This will be something of a homecoming for Druid, as its production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothingmarked the venue's official opening in Sligo in 1982.
More details of the tour itinerary can be found at: druid.ie/productions/big-maggie
