Performance



London Performance Studios is pleased to present ‘Reasons for Staying’, a script-in-hand performance directed by Alastair Curtis.

Maeve Derivan is drinking alone in the backroom of an Irish pub in London one November night in 1986.

When she overhears a young couple at a nearby table making plans for a new life together in Ireland, she is transported back twenty years to when she was a terrified schoolgirl, sailing to England in search of the abortion she couldn’t get at home.

A group of strangers gather around her, to hear her story and share their own. Each has their own version of Ireland: a place of freedom and oppression, tradition and revolt. But as the night draws on, their thoughts turn to the country’s latest political crisis — and they find their conversation has endangered them all.

‘Reasons for Staying’ is an urgent exploration of immigration and identity by Colm Ó Clúbhán. It premiered in London in 1986 and this is its first professional production in 40 years. In addition to the play, Nicky Harris will be performing several songs originally written by Ó Clúbhán for the Brixton Faeries in the late 1970s.

Ó Clúbhán was an Irish poet, playwright and gay activist who migrated from Dublin to South London in 1973. He wrote half a dozen plays for the stage and radio, including ‘Friends of Rio Rita’s’ and ‘Fair Game’, before his AIDS-related death in 1989. None of them have yet been published.

Cast

Connor Byrne – Thomas MacAneave
Cavan Clarke – Martin O’Tyne
Liadán Dunlea –Alice Newman
Taylor McClaine – Cormac Tireney
Justine Mitchell – Maeve Derivan
with Nicky Harris

Creative Team

Director: Alastair Curtis
Costume and Set Designers: Max Allen & Elliott Adcock
Music and Sound Designers: Helen Noir
Lighting Designer and Technical Manager: Sorcha Stott-Strzala
Producers: Izzy Parriss, Alastair Curtis
Production Assistant: Cara Dromgoole
Event Production: KIND
Graphics: Tom Joyes, Fran Ortega
PR: Harry Engall
Language Consultant: Roisin Whelan

With thanks to Derek Evans, Mary Evans Young and Ed Madden.