George Clooney at the theatre in Northern Ireland . . . sort of

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George Clooney at the Theatre at the Mill? Sort of

Posted by tammymoore on Friday, November 23, 2012 ·

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Donna O’Connor has A Christmas Night with George

A Night With George brought the brash, unabashed Ballymurphy girl Bridie Murphy to the stage in Northern Ireland. With her souvenir George Clooney cut-out and a complicated past, she won her way into audience’s heart. Now co-creators Donna O’Connor and Brenda Murphy are returning to Bridie’s world with A Christmas Night with George.

O’Connor and Murphy collaboration started back when O’Connor contacted Murphy as part of her MA dissertation. From the moment Murphy read the first rough draft of the play she knew it was ‘a diamond in the rough’. Still, she admits, she’s been amazed at just how popular the play proved.

‘It staggers me when people come up to me when I’m just out shopping or walking the dog,’ she says. ‘People identify with the character, because she’s just this working class, work-a-day person.’

O’Connor describes Bridie as a ‘bolshie, opinionated, tough and domineering character’. It doesn’t sound very positive, but O’Connor laughs and explains that, ‘She’s vulnerable as the next person. She just covers it all up under these massive amounts of front.’

O’Connor, who plays Bridie on stage as well as co-writing her, knows the character well. In fact, A Christmas Night with George might not be the last script that O’Connor and Murphy write around Bridie. That doesn’t mean that she has much in common with her character, in particular their taste in heartthrobs.

‘George is her ideal man, her dreamboat,’ she says, adding with a laugh. ‘Well, compared to what else is on offer. If you’ve been in the dating scene in Belfast, sometimes it’s not pretty!’

For O’Connor, however, George just doesn’t have what it takes. If it was up to her, she’d prefer Gabriel Byrne, who she actually met while touring A Night With George, but if she had a lifesize prop of him?

‘No-one else would be allowed to see it!’ she chuckles.

So it’s best to stick with George. After all, the play has proven so popular that the Theatre at the Mill contacted Murphy and O’Connor with the idea of writing a special ‘Christmas episode’. In it Bridie tells George about Christmas’ past and present.

‘We’ve just finished the first draft,’ O’Connor says. ‘I think it’s going to be huge. There’s lots of Christmas stories in there, lots for people to identify with. It’s a real tonic for the stress and strain of the Christmas season.’

Both O’Connor and Murphy drew from their own experiences to flesh out Bridie’s Christmas experiences, contributing memories of getting ready to be in the Nativity and trying to make money stretch to buy presents for everyone. ‘The nice and not so nice aspects of Christmas,’ O’Connor explains.

Unlike A Night With George, which draws very much during The Troubles, the Christmas edition avoids historical specificity. ‘My co-writer and I went a more personal thing,’ O’Connor explains. Everything at Christmas is amplified, happy events and ‘human tragedy is far harder to bear at Christmas.’

So far, although George Clooney knows about the show he’s not made an appearance. Maybe if he makes an exception for Christmas it will change O’Connor’s mind about Byrne?

A Christmas Night with George is at the Courtyard at the Mill from December 18 to January 5

melbert wrote:Thanks Joanna, but I'm having a hard time getting my screen in my pocketbook to take to the bank. Maybe I need to get a mini iPad thingy, so it'll fit!!! hahahaha

It's a Christmas comedy and the basic plotline of the show is about a woman called Bridie Murphy, her ideal man is George Clooney and on a night leading up to Christmas she decides to steal a life sized carboard cut out of George Clooney from outside her local cinema.

She takes the cut home where she spends a night in with George telling him the hilarious tales of her life and Christmas past, present, future. This is a Christmas update of the sellout show "A night With George"

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