He’s no stranger to walk-outs and trigger warnings. So the daring dramatist is amazed the BBC is broadcasting his dark new play about a Belfast woman’s lockdown crisis
A decade ago, David Ireland was invited to Belfast’s Europa hotel to seal a deal to write a play called Sadie for Stephen Rea’s Field Day theatre company. “Surreally,” recalls the playwright, “Richard E Grant stopped at our table to say hello to Stephen.” The English actor was making a documentary on interesting hotels, for which the Europa qualified, as Ireland notes, “by being the most frequently bombed in Europe”. When Grant was told the third person at the table was a writer, he “actually asked me then to do a play for him and Stephen. It’s always been in my mind that one day I’ll write a two-hander for them.”
That play hasn’t happened yet and Sadie was only recently completed. The rehearsal script I read was marked draft eight. “Actually,” says Ireland, “it might be the 20th version. Generally, if it gets that hard, I give up. But there was something about that character that somehow demanded to be heard.”
