Monday 20 February 2012

Up North

We're on the move again, after a fantastic couple of weeks in Cork, and Lisburn is a long drive into Northern Ireland. Two things happen after we cross the border - we instantly start checking our phones for home signal; and we start seeing signs for places which have strong resonance to people my age - like Derry, Enniskillen and Armagh.
It's a fact of theatre that you'll work with people of all ages, and I'm constantly astounded both by how little I know about popular culture and how quickly relatively recent history becomes clouded or forgotten. Stuart, who's in his mid-20's, admits to not knowing much about the Troubles, and Jamie and I suddenly find ourselves attempting a hamfisted potted version which skirts dangerously close to reinventing history. We lurch from trying to explain the Orange Order, Bloody Sunday and the Remembrance Day bombing to remembering how Gerry Adams had his words spoken by an actor on TV for years. I don't suppose we're the first to realise that a dot-to-dot approach doesn't work with a subject as prolonged and complicated as the situation in Ireland, but it's a humbling experience nonetheless.

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