Yes So I Said Yes, written by Cyprus Avenue‘s multi-award-winning author David Ireland, receives its British premiere this month at London’s Finborough Theatre, in a limited four-week season running from 23 November to 19 December 2021, with press nights on 25 and 26 November. Time to get booking!
“It’s harder to kill people when there’s a peace process on.”
Ulster Loyalist Alan Black is kept awake every night by his neighbour McCorrick’s dog barking. To add to his difficulties, McCorrick refuses to acknowledge that he even owns a dog, let alone one that is creating a disturbance.
In a Northern Ireland he barely recognises, where politics has proved just to be the continuation of war by other means, a disconsolate Alan sets out to rid himself of the incessant noise.
As he seeks help from authority figures, he finally – as a very last resort – turns to the only voice he can really trust, Eammon Holmes…
Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the partition of Ireland and the foundation of Northern Ireland, Yes So I Said Yes is a blackly comic, ferocious, dystopian satire about what it’s like to feel alone in a place where everyone else is conspiring to erase you and your history.
"Eamonn Holmes. Eamonn Holmes. Eamonn Holmes."#quotesnuffy
The only man Snuffy can trust. A ferocious comedy.
YES SO I SAID YES
David Ireland
23 Nov – 18 Dec @finboroughTickets | https://t.co/yX9R1yaJpA#NorthernIrish #theatre #surreal #blackcomedy #OffWestEnd pic.twitter.com/uSbqMBWusK
— Yes So I Said Yes (@YesPlay2021) November 17, 2021
David Ireland is the multi-award-winning author of Cyprus Avenue, which premiered at the Royal Court in 2017 before transferring to New York and Ireland before transferring back to London in 2019. He returns to the Finborough Theatre following the critically acclaimed English premiere of Everything Between Us.
Yes So I Said Yes also returns director Max Elton to the Finborough following his “excellent production” (The Guardian) of Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot and reunites him with David Ireland, whose play The End of the Hope he directed at Soho Theatre.
Yes So I Said Yes stars Daragh O’Malley as Alan “Snuffy” Black, along with Kevin Murphy, Owen O’Neill, Declan Rodgers, Laura Dos Santos and Kevin Trainor. The production is designed by Ceci Calf, with lighting by Arnim Friess, costumes by Isobel Pellow, sound and composition by Jack Baxter. It’s produced by Sarah Roy and presented by 19th Street Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough.
Post-show Q&A
As a special event on Wednesday, 1 December, there will be a Q&A session after the performance of Yes So I Said Yes which will take place in the theatre auditorium. It will feature playwright David Ireland, director Max Elton and cast members. The event will be moderated by Sue Healy, Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre. Performance + Q&A tickets must be purchased together for this special performance and will be £30 (£28 concessions) for the performance and Q&A.
Show trailer
Bios
Playwright David Ireland was born in Belfast and brought up in County Down. He was Playwright-in-Residence at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, in 2011-2012. In 2010, Everything Between Us, first produced by Solas Nua and Tinderbox Theatre Company, was performed in Belfast, Scotland and Washington, D.C., winning the Stewart Parker Trust BBC Radio Drama Award and the Meyer-Whitworth Award for Best New Play. It received its English premiere at the Finborough Theatre in 2017. Yes So I Said Yes was first performed at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, in 2011 as part of the Belfast Festival and then on a tour of Northern Ireland, where its performances in Omagh led to the theatre being picketed by a local church group.
Stephen Rea starred in Cyprus Avenue
Cyprus Avenue premiered at the Royal Court Theatre before transferring to the Public Theater, New York City, the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and the Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, winning The Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Drama. It returned to the Royal Court Theatre in 2019. It received over 100,000 views online. In 2018, Ireland’s Ulster American was performed by the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of their Edinburgh Festival season, where it was awarded the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, and won Best Female Performance, Best New Play and Best Production at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland.
Director Max Elton directed the critically acclaimed production of David Ireland’s The End of Hope in Soho Theatre’s main space in a co-production between Soho Theatre and Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. He wrote and directed Big Brother Blitzkrieg (King’s Head Theatre), and other direction includes The Melting Pot (Finborough Theatre), Stripped (King’s Head Theatre) and Leftovers (Tristan Bates Theatre).
