Northern Star by Stewart Parker directed by Lynne Parker.

The production opened at Project Arts Centre Dublin before transferring to the Tron Theatre, Glasgow and then on to the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.

It was said to be “..a directly political play that manages to be vastly entertaining as well as intellectually supple..” Fintan O’Toole.

Stewart Parker’s Northern Star was based on the charismatic Belfast-born United Irishman Henry Joy McCracken, as he dissects the reasons for the failure of the 1798 rebellion, and its attempt to forge a new nation. The story took place on the night before his arrest and subsequent execution; a night that recalls the seven ages of his life, with each presented in the style of a great Irish writer, from Boucicault and Wilde, to Behan and Beckett. It delivered a comic, terrifying and moving journey through the missed opportunities of Irish history.