Marie Jones and Dan Gordon – the creative team behind last year’s hit show Mistletoe and Crime – are returning to the Lyric this year with another hilarious Christmas show, Christmas Eve Can Kill You, which opens next week.
Set in 1992 Belfast, the play tells the story of Mackers – a Belfast cabbie who’d rather work Christmas Eve than suffer the celebrations. Half the city needs to be somewhere else – trouble is, not everyone’s in the mood for a merry Christmas, and those who are full of the festive spirit are, well, full of the festive spirit.
They’re all out tonight, from a superstitious Santa with a sackful of Poitin to Mr Dunne who’s struggling to make it out of the pub to get the turkey home to his wife. Throw in a cheating husband, an abandoned Granny, some serious shoppers, an upper-class English actor who may be the most unlikely choice to play a paramilitary leader, and a squaddie who just wants to go home to his girlfriend, and you have all the ingredients for an unforgettable Belfast Christmas Eve.
The cast includes Tim Loane who played Mackers in the original production; Julia Dearden who recently starred alongside Kristin Scott Thomas in the Old Vic’s production of Electra; Dan Gordon who also directs the play, and who starred as Red Hand Luke in the BBC TV sitcom Give My Head Peace; Lisburn’s Louise Parker who returns to the Lyric having starred in Mistletoe and Crime last Christmas; Matthew McElhinney who was 3 years old when his mum – Marie Jones – wrote the play; and Katie Tumelty and Tara Lynne O’Neill who are rapidly turning into a Marie Jones double act, having performed together in Mistletoe and Crime and Fly Me To The Moon on the Lyric stage this year.
Christmas Eve Can Kill You opens on November 24 and runs until January 10 on the Danske Bank Stage.