 war and no partition and what of home rule had actually passed and Ireland was still part of the UK well these are the sort of questions that are being asked in a very ambitious production of a play called The Alternative. It's been staged by the Atta Kenney music and drama group in Angreana Theatre at tomorrow night and on Saturday night and the director Ciaran Kelly is with me now in the studio. Ciaran the way I outlined it there it sounds very political and very serious but it's anything but oh it's not it's I mean those things are there as part of it that's the kind of the premise set up but after that it's a comedy it is funny it is a very funny show I think people will be very surprised at some of the laughs they're going to get there's we've had a couple of invited audiences into rehearsals and the belly laughs of them at some of the lines that are said they're just hilarious so it's really while politics and history are part of it but it's only the set up after that you don't need to know you just go along with the right of it you know and and and tell me about how it's settled because it's uh it's based it's bang up to date 2024 of selling right yeah and and and what the there's a visit by the British prime minister yeah who's from Dublin who's from Dublin exactly and it's like uh so she's there basically the support the the voting that was written in the context of Brexit when the writers Michael Patrick and Austin Kearney when they wrote it it was kind of so you had leave or remain but they have that now in the context of leave or remain the UK so she's coming over the leave campaign is gaining traction so she comes to Dublin to try and win the back remain she wants them to remain so but it's a live television debate and she's going toe-to-toe with the Irish parliamentary party leader and they're going back and forth and the two of them by the way Elaine Gillespie here in McGowan it's just fantastic they the bouncing off each other fantastically um so there she's trying to get but things start to go wrong in the debate uh with a live broadcast things going to like now things going to go wrong and just like that comedy so in a way there's a sort of serious overtones or there's a message behind it but when things start to go wrong in the broadcast that's when the funny elements come into it yes exactly yeah yeah but underpinning it all there's you know there's the the threat of chaos in the streets yeah and and she's over here to win over the voters and to get a exactly and to get a vote for and and amidst all that there is this father daughter story going on and that's the heart of the story and that's where people can relate to because if you don't get that whole thing that's right there's the human story is is uh Gronja has these everyone else refers to them as delusions or episodes she has visions of alternate realities including she can see our world so she can see like you know and their dismissors they could say oh she talks about this other place where she draws a bad Italian flag you know whereas and things like that are different so her father um has they basically just lost the father's lost his wife and she's just lost her mother a week before so they're going through the that as well and that underpins the kind of the human aspect of the story and that's what the two writers did brilliantly it said they didn't just write a political comedy in the lines of yes prime minister or something like that they wrote a human heart full story too and that's what really shines through as well uh it's not today or yesterday that you started without a candy music entrapment you've come across hundreds of plays and productions but you picked this one and you really love this one and I can tell you how enthusiastic you are and you want people to come along and and see it now you know when you're hearing about it next week in the week after you've been going well I did tell you this is what happens and it was sent to you just before we came on air it's like I remember when we first did the 39 steps in 2011 and we did it and it was an ambitious play to do and you know it was great to do it but we were like trying to get people to go to see it and they were like ah I've never really heard of it and you know it was a big push to get them in you you knew how good it was going to be yeah we we were part of with it this is something special you're going to love this but it was a push to get people in and then it was a success we brought it back a year later and you couldn't get a ticket because word of mouth had spread and that's the danger with doing a new play um where I understand it I know myself that it's not it's not I've never heard of that will I like it you know this is on the same regard I would say people will love it if they could take a chance on that show they really have to take your word for it very true very true very true just started back in 2017 it was a theater company in Dublin actually yes and they put out a call for was it plays out to reflect Ireland or yes first shambles theater they had a kind of a not so much a competition but it kind of they had the basically sent out the memo to write they wanted to produce a new play and there was over I think was 370 submissions of it and eventually they were whittled down to 200 and 150 and 10 and whatever and eventually the alternative was chosen as the play the best reflected the Ireland of that day and it was first produced then in 2019 by Fashamble and tour the country went to Cork and Dublin and Belfast and all over and on down Brinley everywhere where it went it was just fantastic and it just so happens that the two writers uh there's a mutual friend uh Patrick McBurty who people will be aware of uh the actor he knows them and I know him and he told me about this play and I thought well this just sounds brilliant the premise sounds brilliant so can you get me a script so I first read it in March 2020 and I was like from the very first page I was like this is what you can't do that what really and I thought this is just fantastic and I read the whole way through and says right this is what I'm doing next little did I know the two weeks later COVID would change everything and just everything shut down and everything went away and everything you know so it's taken me this long line to come back to it and say right now I want to do it and it's always been at the back of my mind this is it's so different to any other play I've ever seen or read that I was like and that's what I wanted to do I wanted to push the boundaries and do something out there you know so there's no danger of you forgetting about it or or saying listen I'm going to park that move on and do something popular it was the minute the dust settled you were going to do this was always in the long finger to do and I'm glad and then just so it just so happens then it's it couldn't have kind of come in a better time with with Stormant returning and everything in the news right now that it is it's in it's part of the conversation again this and you know and the lads who wrote it they're from the north and they wrote it in the context as well with the centenaries of the the border and so on so it's part of that with the writing but it's still relevant now and that's why I've said originally it was set in 2019 or there was one that was first performed but I said well it's 2024 because nothing's really changed it's still kind of relevant now so and and even the fact that the debate the live debate is going out on BBC Dublin yes it's set in it's set in BBC Dublin studios these are some of the little things that the writers have done brilliantly that just subvert what you think you know and like this I mean there's even there's a line about saying that thank god we abolished the the the license fee and he says that this is like you ever paid it anyway and I say well that's very right now how relevant exactly you know so it's it's it's set in that kind of thing and the audience will be made to feel that they're in BBC Dublin studios they're at this live television debate that there's going to be a camera set up with a live feed broadcast on screens on the stage and it's a very technical highly technical show and it's the audience will be made to feel that they're at the debate and they'll have something to contribute to the debate so it's it's uh that's what I mean about the ambition of it it's certainly it's certainly out there and that's that's what we'll make it entertaining for the audience you mentioned a couple of the cast members they're laying Gillespie and Irle McGowan so again you've gathered up some fine acting talent fantastic put them through the middle yes that's what I love doing no they're each of them are fantastic I mean Elaine we all know she's been in so many shows with the group and Irle before we went off to become a professional actor he started along with Elaine in the Celtic story 2002 so it's great to have him back 22 years later and share in the stage once again with Elaine but then also now we've got Cahill Gallar from Ghidor and this is his first English language play he's performed in our client Ghidor for many productions and he is kind of so he's been used to performing at Skelega so this has been a for him not a struggle I wouldn't say it's a struggle for him but different for him and he's just fantastic as a producer then we have Laura Gleason as Grania Darren Winston Darren Winston is just fantastic Darren many people will know him he plays the producer does he he plays the presenter of the show and he has this smugness about him and it's great not the presenters are smug now don't know when he has that kind of thing about him it's fantastic and then we have Mary Lane as well who's he's just fantastic she's the kind of assistant producer on the show when she's getting her big chance to to get to do the show I don't want to give too much away okay but um but that's like and then like I said things start to go wrong uh in different ways that it's not it's not a farce so I don't think the set isn't going to fall down it's not it's not like that but just things don't go according to plan and this everybody's tuned in to watch the show and it doesn't go quite according to plan uh in front of the camera and behind the camera yeah pretty much pretty much and there's it said by luck as well uh again we're talking about relevance and so on when I was looking for footage I wanted to talk about kind of riots or starting out in the streets of Dublin I was like I need to get footage of riots in the streets of Dublin and then last November or wherever it was it just presented to me too far back from that exactly so so it is it is kind of because people will recognize little things and there's I said there's a couple of weed local touches as well that I won't mention that I got permission to do to add on a week of the local flourishes that uh again if you're from letter county you'll appreciate the those references to hope well listen it sounds like a brilliant mix and it's called um the alternative and uh there's still some tickets available for tomorrow night and on Saturday night and uh get it now before you hear about it next week and go oh I'm just ashamed it didn't go long and see that or when it starts winning the wards and you kick yourself you didn't see it first time round Kearny thank you very much thanks so much John thank you