HELLO CHARLIE to Tour Ireland and Northern Ireland This Autumn

The full cast and creative team have been announced for Caoimhe Farren's Hello Charlie, which will embark on an Irish and Northern Irish tour this autumn.

The production will open at the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on September 16 before traveling to An Grianán Theatre in Letterkenny September 25-26. It will then play the Lyric Theatre, Belfast as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival October 7-18.

Written by Farren and co-directed by Seón Simpson and Gina Donnelly, Hello Charlie will star Farren as Maeve McGinty, Clare Monnelly as her sister Kate McGinty, Vincent Higgins as their father Finn McGinty and Callum Payne as Alan Beasley.

The creative team includes lighting designer Jonathan M Daley, set designer Sinéad Owens, dramaturg Karis Kelly, intimacy coordinator Paula O'Reilly and company stage manager Jonathan Rainey Reid.

The production is a cross-border co-production between SkelpieLimmer Productions, Front & Centre and An Grianán Theatre, in association with Pavilion Theatre, Fishamble: The New Play Company and the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, with support from Gallagher Films.

Hello Charlie follows sisters Maeve and Kate, who have left their troubled past in Derry behind to build new lives in London. While Kate attempts to prevent history from repeating itself, Maeve turns to alcohol and attributes her increasingly chaotic behavior to her drunken alter ego, Charlie.

Blending dark comedy with an exploration of trauma, addiction and sisterhood, the play examines the realities of addiction while drawing on the humor and resilience of the North of Ireland.

Developed through the Lyric Theatre's New Playwrights programme, Hello Charlie is Farren's debut play. The work was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting, named a finalist for the inaugural Victoria Wood Playwriting Prize for Comedy and placed in the top 1% of the BBC Writers Open Call. Its development was also supported by the Pavilion Theatre Patron Donation Award and Fishamble's New Play Clinic.

“This production has been five years in the making so I am beyond thrilled to finally bring Hello Charlie to audiences across the island of Ireland!” Farren said. “It takes a village to raise a play! Bring on rehearsals.”

Directors Donnelly and Simpson described the play as a “laugh out loud black comedy” that uses humor to confront Ireland's relationship with alcohol.

“At SkelpieLimmer productions we prioritise plays that feel like a great night out, but have edge and speak to real world issues,” the directors said. “Hello Charlie is unique in how it uses humour not to judge that problem but to lure an audience into confronting it through humour: which is the Irish way.”

Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, a longtime supporter of Farren's writing, called the play “funny, fearless and thought provoking,” while The Dry star Roisin Gallagher described it as “sharply witty” and “heartbreakingly honest.”

Hello Charlie opens September 16 at the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire, followed by performances September 25-26 at An Grianán Theatre in Letterkenny and October 7-18 at the Lyric Theatre as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival.

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Tour Dates

Pavilion Theatre

16th September

On sale now: https://www.paviliontheatre.ie/events/view/hello-charlie

An Grianán Theatre,

25th - 26th September

On sale now: https://angrianan.com/event/hello-charlie/

Lyric Theatre