This month, we go on a very special tour (full list of dates directly below).  Twenty five years on from the first ever Co-Motion tour of Frank Pig Says Hello, the original team of author Pat McCabe and director Joe O’Byrne (as well as original producer Declan Gorman and PR Director Kate Bowe) reunite for a major 20 venue tour of Ireland.  We kick off with a celebratory launch over four nights at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre (24-27 Sept), then on October 2nd we go to Pat’s hometown of Clones to recreate the legendary opening night of the 1993 tour – and from there North, South, East and West all over the country.  A longer press release follows further down, but first – a chronological list of dates and direct booking links to each venue. 

Please note: the run at Gaiety Theatre, Dublin (24-27 Sept) is now concluded.

Clones – The Courthouse, Tues 2nd Oct – to book, phone Harry on 086 3542895

PRESS RELEASE

Co-Motion Media 

presents

FRANK PIG SAYS HELLO

by Pat McCabe

Directed by Joe O’Byrne

Performed by Darragh Byrne and John Ruddy

with Set Design by Robert Ballagh and

Lighting Design by Conleth White

Twenty-five years after its first groundbreaking tour, Pat McCabe’s FRANK PIG SAYS HELLO returns this Autumn to twenty theatres across Ireland, in a new production that brilliantly captures the legendary original.

Desperately funny and yet deeply tragic, FRANK PIG SAYS HELLO is one of the great classics of modern Irish theatre.  It tells the story of Francie Brady growing up in a small Irish town in the 1960s and his descent towards a brutal act that shocks his community. Described as “one of the saddest and funniest tales I have seen”The Irish Times; “a masterpiece” The Evening Herald and “an extraordinary piece of theatre” The Sunday Independent, the original production coincided with McCabe’s Booker-winning novel of the same story entitled “The Butcher Boy”. The play distils Francie’s infamous narrative into a riveting evening of pure, concentrated theatre.

Featuring mesmerising performances by two actors, Darragh Byrne and John Ruddy, Frank Pig is regarded as one of the most vivid, hilarious and heartbreaking evocations ever seen on a stage of an Irish childhood and adolescence gone wrong. From the opening live trumpet notes over an image of a happy, comical boy acting the piglet, to the breathtaking depiction of a dark deed, this is theatre at its most entertaining and gripping best.

Pat McCabe and Joe O’Byrne collaborated on the original Frank Pig Says Hello production for the 1992 Dublin Theatre Festival where it won Best Production, before embarking on a world tour that began in Clones, Co. Monaghan and concluded in New York. Since then the two have produced together Loco County Lonesome, The Dead School, and The Revenant. Set design is by leading Irish artist Robert Ballagh. The show was recently recreated for the 2017 Dublin Theatre Festival winning high praise for exceptional young actor Darragh Byrne and the multi-talented actor, trumpet player and cartoonist John Ruddy, known for his Youtube video animations which have had millions of hits worldwide.

The play suited for 12s upwards.

The tour of Frank Pig Says Hello is grant-aided by the Arts Council of Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Kindly sponsored by Patrick Goodwin & Co., Solicitors, Drogheda

Darragh Byrne (foreground) as Francie and John D. Ruddy as Older Francie in FRANK PIG SAYS HELLO